Stoke-London Mon 29th Dec

[Lewisham2221]

After checking the National Rail, London Midland and 1 or 2 other websites for details of engineering works etc over this period, I used the journey planner on the National Rail site (which is claimed to be up to date) to confirm train times and fares for the journey I wanted to make;

1 YP and 1 Adult

Outward Monday 29th Dec
0852 (Crewe-)Stoke - Euston (Yes, I know this is the 3+ hour LM service, but it's cheap and doesn't really bother me)

Return Tuesday 30th Dec
2129 Euston - Stoke(-Manchester)


The journey planner seemingly confirmed that these services exist and will run as advertised, and that cheap advance purchase fares were available, with a total cost of around £45.

So, only having a Visa Electron available - which means I'm unable to purchase tickets online, I set off to the station armed with £50 cash. Upon attempting to purchase tickets, I was told "It's not showing anything for those dates, Railtrack(!!!) mustn't have decided what works they're doing yet." I informed the chap that the NR website showed them as available and was told "Yes, but it won't let you buy them."

Back home I went, where I once again checked, this time getting right through to the page where I would enter my card details should somebody out there realise that it might be a sensible idea to accept Solo and Electron cards. Funny, I thought it wouldn't let me get this far???

So this morning I once again checked online before setting off to the station to attempt to purchase the tickets again, hoping that some sort of update might have been made overnight or something. Upon arrival at the station I checked all signage and posters, which made no mention of any works which may affect my journey, so I proceeded to the ticket office, where upon stating when I wanted to travel I was told, without the clerk even checking the system "That's when all the works are happening so there's no cheap fares, you'll have to change at Derby or Reading or something like that."

Duly, National Express have just received £58 from myself for a similar journey - leaving Stoke at 0815 on Monday and returning at 2330 on Tuesday. </rant over>

Anybody out there able to offer any logical thoughts to ease my confusion?

 

[dan_atki]

Tickets are showing in the NXEC journey planner - total cost £44.85.

I suggest you book it through NXEC using your Electron card (selecting Visa as the card type). You get a choice of how to receive the tickets. Although here First Class Post may be the better option, with the huge amount of items Royal Mail deal with at this time of year it could be worth using the ticket on departure facility at a local station for peace of mind.

Although such machines do not accept Electron as a form of payment they accept it as a form of identity (which is all you need to put the card in for) and should then issue your tickets as requested.

 

[OwlMan]

Use National Express East Coast they accept:
Visa Credit, Visa Debit, MasterCard, American Express, Solo, Electron and Maestro Cards.

Peter