Nice surprise, automatic refund for uncollected tickets (Trainsplit)

[trainophile]

I’ve been quite ill since Saturday, but by Sunday afternoon I was feeling better so booked some tickets for a journey on Tuesday. However when Tuesday arrived I realised I was still not well enough to travel, and put it down to experience.

Today a refund from Trainsplit popped into my bank account totally unsolicited, for the cost of the Off Peak Single tickets less a £5 admin fee per ticket. I checked my email and found I’d been notified of this due to the tickets being uncollected.

This raised two thoughts - (1) don’t collect tickets until you get to the station on your day of travel, and (2) this wouldn’t happen with e-tickets would it? (Of course most people probably wouldn’t buy them in advance anyway.)

Obviously this only works with non-Advance tickets, you still lose the cost of those if your plans change at the last minute.

Also I’d be interested to know how Trainsplit knew I hadn’t collected the tickets. Does some central database automatically notify the relevant retailer of uncollected tickets? Do other retailers do automatic refunds?

Thanks Trainsplit, not a huge amount but has softened the blow of cancelling my trip.

 

[Adam Williams]

this wouldn’t happen with e-tickets would it?

No, you're right; you don't have the guarantee that the tickets won't have been able to have been used with E-Tickets; it's not enough to rely on them having not been scanned.

With Ticket on Departure (paper tickets collected from station), passengers should never be permitted to travel solely on the ToD reference because that doesn't constitute a real ticket, and so you can be much more confident that the tickets are unused if unprinted.

Does some central database automatically notify the relevant retailer of uncollected tickets?

I don't think it notifies Raileasy, but it's possible to look them up en masse after the ticket validity date and ascertain they're still marked as unprinted in the central ToD database.

Do other retailers do automatic refunds?

I think Trainline might do something similar?

 

[Joe Paxton]

[...]
With Ticket on Departure (paper tickets collected from station), passengers should never be permitted to travel solely on the ToD reference because that doesn't constitute a real ticket, and so you can be much more confident that the tickets are unused if unprinted. [...]

I had no problem doing just that when a station's solitary TVM was out of order and wanted to collect a ticket, though I did approach the guard on boarding to say so (and to say other boarding pax had also been unable to buy tickets) - they thanked me, and later looked at my booking confirmation email (or maybe booking confirmation in relevant app, I forget) and advised collecting it when I changed (it was a multi-leg journey). I did take a photo of the out of order TVM for proof, just in case.

I know some guards have ticket machines that can access and print TOD tickets, but otherwise I can't see what the guard should reasonably do in such a situation. As always, proactively approaching the guard is a good idea!

 

[sheff1]

I had no problem doing just that

Me neither. Travelled from Sheffield to Cheltenham when the TVMs (and booking officed) at Sheffield were inaccesible due to flooding. If that had been the full extent of my journey there would have been no need for me to collect the ticket, but as the ticket was to Rosslare thought it best to collect to make sure I could get on the boat .