Split Tickets

[Pilning]

I recently made a pleasant enough journey from Manchester to Bristol Parkway, booked via Trainsplit.com which saved me about 35% of the advertises Cross Country fare. As a result the journey was split into four parts, so the ticket machine at MAN kindly printed me four tickets, four seat reservations and a collection receipt.
I was just wondering who pays for the cost of printing the eight pieces of cardboard that I didn't need?

 

[najaB]

I was just wondering who pays for the cost of printing the eight pieces of cardboard that I didn't need?

We all do.

 

[yorkie]

I was just wondering who pays for the cost of printing the eight pieces of cardboard that I didn't need?

The retailer is charged (around 50p, I believe?) and the company operating the machine is credited.

So the company operating the machine (probably Virgin Trains, depending on what machine you used) bought the ticket stock but were more than compensated for it by Trainsplit.

I'd imagine each individual coupon costs very little, so the 50p is more going towards the upkeep of the machine.

The cost is the same per TOD transaction (presumably because much of the time spent at the machine is entering your card, your TOD collection number and general faffing around, and the marginal time penalty of multiple coupons on fast-printing machines isn't worth fussing over).

 

[6Gman]

I recently made a pleasant enough journey from Manchester to Bristol Parkway, booked via Trainsplit.com which saved me about 35% of the advertises Cross Country fare. As a result the journey was split into four parts, so the ticket machine at MAN kindly printed me four tickets, four seat reservations and a collection receipt.
I was just wondering who pays for the cost of printing the eight pieces of cardboard that I didn't need?

You did need them!

 

[yorkie]

XC set the through fares to be very high because they know that some of their passengers don't know about sites like Trainsplit and hardly anyone has the time to research possible splitting points. The know some of those people will choose not to make the journey by rail, or even at all, when they see the high fares, but that's fine as their trains are very short, so are often full. If just some of those people pay their higher fare, then they're quids-in.

So they will keep charging a premium unless the Government forces them to stop doing it, which is incredibly unlikely.

Unless you want to pay the high XC premium fares, then yes you do need those 8 pieces of cardboard.