Sleeper supplements

[Muzer]

Hi,

I'm going to pop into my local station tomorrow (Andover) to buy my standard class ALR, book a metric tonne of reservations, and buy a couple of sleeper supplements - one for a solo berth from King's Cross to Inverness, and another for Penzance to Reading.

Since the quality of ticket office staff is widely known to be variable, can anyone tell me the best way to ask for the supplements so that the ticket office staff are likely to be able to find them?

Additionally, is a 16-25 railcard discount available for either of the sleeper supplements?

 

[Flying Snail]

If the clerk has difficulty try suggesting that they go through the process of purchasing an anytime single for the journey required, add the sleeper supplement + reservation then delete the anytime ticket before completing the sale.

That used to be the only way they could be coaxed out of certain systems. Things may be different these days and I would imagine the different reservation systems will not have exactly the same procedure.

I have long given up trying to get these tickets out of ticket offices that are unlikely to deal with them regularly. This is after many years of frustrating encounters with staff obviously untrained in how to correctly use their computers for anything outside the usual ticket types they were familiar with.

If getting to one of the main sleeper stations is not convenient I now just use scotrail telesales, normally I hate dealing with this sort of thing on the phone but the scotrail staff have always been very good.

 

[bb21]

Since the quality of ticket office staff is widely known to be variable, can anyone tell me the best way to ask for the supplements so that the ticket office staff are likely to be able to find them?

No, as different TIS have different instructions.

Your best bet is to ring ScotRail telesales.

Additionally, is a 16-25 railcard discount available for either of the sleeper supplements?

No.

 

[Muzer]

Your best bet is to ring ScotRail telesales.

Are these available ToD or do they have to deliver? If the latter, it might be a bit late I'm afraid - I'm leaving Monday (yes, I know, I did leave planning rather to the last minute - this was unavoidable due to family issues meaning I had to postpone it slightly).

 

[horizonflame]

In my experience the clerks at Andover lack knowledge and dismissive of anything more irregular, so good luck there! However the guy at Whitchurch, on the other hand, is excellent!

 

[Muzer]

Ah, yes, I have heard good things about Whitchurch. I might take a trip up there shortly, in that case. Isn't the member of staff there a rail enthusiast? They're always the best

 

[PaxVobiscum]

Your best bet is to ring ScotRail telesales.

Just repeating, in case that didn't register.

 

[bb21]

Are these available ToD or do they have to deliver? If the latter, it might be a bit late I'm afraid - I'm leaving Monday (yes, I know, I did leave planning rather to the last minute - this was unavoidable due to family issues meaning I had to postpone it slightly).

They can arrange ToD.

 

[Muzer]

Whitchurch managed it, though I had to buy singles and get them refunded. We're now waiting for the London rush to die so he can do all my reservations...
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
OK, he couldn't figure out how to do (non-sleeper) reservations without buying a single along with it and refunding it for each one (which would obviously take forever and be quite temporarily expensive). I'll travel unreserved, but does anyone know (so I can tell him, he's interested to know which is more than can be said for many ticket office staff!) how to book reservations without buying a ticket on the system in use at Whitchurch? It was entitled "LIVE - journey planner", with SWT branding, and he also got out a manual which included "RJIS" in the title (but he said that it was "for the old version", though it looked similar from the glimpses I caught of it).
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
It also unfortunately appeared that they were out of solo supplements (the option was greyed out on his screen) - understandable considering it's on Monday - so I'm probably going to have to share...

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Off the top of my head....

Book the seats/berths and close the reservation summary screen. Before pressing "Ticket Basket" there should be a tick box entitled something like "issue reservations and supplements only" (the clerk might need to scroll down). Ticking that and then clicking "ticket Basket" should transfer the reservations to the ticket machine without any tickets.

 

[Muzer]

Thanks. I might go back tomorrow and try again. It's only a 20 minute drive away (compared to about 8 minutes for Andover) so probably worth it.

 

[Haywain]

Wouldn't it be better to try Andover, now you have found that Whitchurch can't do something so simple?

 

[Muzer]

Because the guy at Whitchurch is nice and eager to please, whereas a few of the people at Andover are grumpy sods

(Also, on that system, it didn't appear that booking a reservation without a ticket is amazingly simple - we tried to work it out together for a good 15 minutes. Given the errors I've had at Andover, I certainly wouldn't expect they'd do any better).

 

[Haywain]

Mmm. I've come across staff who are eager to please and can't do simple things as well. A combination of great customer service and incompetence. I'd prefer someone slightly grumpy but efficient any day, although preferably without the grumpiness.

 

[Muzer]

Went again today and showed him the trick - he was very grateful. After about three quarters of an hour of chat, he handed me this:

http://tim32.org/~muzer/DSCN1332.JPG

How am I going to fit these in my wallet?

 

[higthomas]

Wow, looks like a well used ALR, looks fun ??????

 

[Marionaki]

Wow! Loads of tickets there to take with you!
On another matter, does anyone know if it is possible to find out before travelling if the other berth in the cabin has been reserved? I guess not. But once I get to the train and the other berth is occupied, are the nice attendants able to upgrade my bargain berth to a single occupancy cabin? I know that it says on the website that you can't upgrade a bargain berth, but maybe the sleeper attendants will make exceptions during midweek travelling? Thanks.

 

[Kite159]

Enjoy your trip

I've always found Andover to be ok when buying some day ranger tickets.

Just be thankful Whitchurch has a ticket office, didn't SWT want rid of them and replace with a self-serve machine?

 

[Muzer]

I don't think Andover would have had the time or the patience to put up with 45 minutes' worth of seat reservations, even if the staff are the best in the world, given the increased train frequency and number of passengers

 

[Kite159]

Probably not, lucky buggers getting 2 trains per hour :P