Tickets delayed in the post

[Tom B]

Someone I know has booked tickets from East Coast; however, they are to be delivered by Special Delivery. Unfortunately they haven't arrived, a few days after they should have done - presumably Royal Mail aren't bothering to deliver with the snow. Can they contact East Coast and have the tickets re-printed, or do they need to buy fresh and claim from Royal Mail for non-delivery? I presume that it'd be East Coast, since they are (?) responsible for the goods until they reach the customer?

 

[tony_mac]

the procedure is usually to ring the call centre 24 hours before travel (you can't do it any earlier), then they will fax a form to the station.

then arrive at the station in plenty of time, as they will need to find the fax and then handwrite the tickets.

 

[John @ home]

It seems East Coast's procedure varies depending on whether they have a presence at your departure station.

In September my family booked some EC tickets for journeys later this month. They have not arrived, and are now very unlikely to arrive. This is the first time in 30-40 purchases that postal delivery has not been prompt. We asked EC what to do.

We are leaving from a station which is not managed by EC, but which does have an EC First Class lounge. We were told to go to that lounge 30-60 minutes before scheduled departure time with the card and reference number, and the tickets will be printed for us.

There must be a different procedure for stations without an EC presence. I don't know those details.

My understanding is that Special Delivery items are tracked from person to person and that the individual postal worker who last handled the item is able to be identified. That may or may not add a complication for the person Tom B knows.

 

[bnm]

I have a friend who in the past failed to receive his pre-booked tickets from East Coast. He was starting his journey to Newcastle from Bracknell. He phoned the websales helpline and they faxed SWT at Bracknell from where he was able to collect his tickets.

 

[ashworth]

I can remember many years ago booking return tickets from Derby to Southampton online with the old Qjump company and these didn't arrive. It actually turned into a very interesting situation but very worrying at the time.

I had always been used to tickets being booked online arriving within a couple of days by first class post and also the money is taken from your bank account within a week even if you are booking many weeks in advance. This time the tickets didn't arrive and although I had received an email of booking details including reference number no money was deducted from my bank account. After a few weeks I contacted Qjump to explain the situation anbd they insisted that sometimes tickets weren't dispatched until a few days before travel. I just couldn't get them to understand about the money not having been taken out of my bank account. I tried to explain this situation in a series of phone calls during the following weeks but Qjump looked up my booking reference, told me that there was no problem, and kept insisting my tickets would arrive the week before travel.

On the day before travel they hadn't arrived so I rang Qjump who said that they must have been lost in the post and they promisised to arrange for me to collect my tickets at Derby at 6.30 am the next morning (Saturday. It was approx a 7am departure. When I arrived at Derby they knew nothing about my tickets but fortunately they were very helpful and contacted Qjump, which resulted in them issuing me with some handwritten tickets complete with my seat reservations.

When I got on the train, both on the outward and return journeys my seat reservations were there and so the journey had definitely been booked. Interestingly Qjump never did deduct the money from my bank account and so I had a free return journey from Derby to Southampton. Obviously my tickets were showing as being booked on their computer, yet the process of charging for them, printing them and posting them to me was not completed. It's a good thing that I arrived very early at Derby station on a dark winter Saturday morning and also that the staff at Derby were helpful.

 

[Tom B]

It seems East Coast's procedure varies depending on whether they have a presence at your departure station.

In September my family booked some EC tickets for journeys later this month. They have not arrived, and are now very unlikely to arrive. This is the first time in 30-40 purchases that postal delivery has not been prompt. We asked EC what to do.

We are leaving from a station which is not managed by EC, but which does have an EC First Class lounge. We were told to go to that lounge 30-60 minutes before scheduled departure time with the card and reference number, and the tickets will be printed for us.

There must be a different procedure for stations without an EC presence. I don't know those details.

My understanding is that Special Delivery items are tracked from person to person and that the individual postal worker who last handled the item is able to be identified. That may or may not add a complication for the person Tom B knows.

The station they're leaving is managed by East Coast - will it cause any problems if the person who booked and paid for the tickets is not the one who uplifts them?

 

[Deerfold]

the procedure is usually to ring the call centre 24 hours before travel (you can't do it any earlier), then they will fax a form to the station.

then arrive at the station in plenty of time, as they will need to find the fax and then handwrite the tickets.

Now that's interesting as they've done it earlier for me as I've said I can be at the station a couple of days in advance but on the day I'm travelling I'll be in a hurry (was travelling on a train from Kings X at 1803, finishing work at 1700 with half an hours travel time to KX - plenty of time to connect but not to queue at peak time and pick up several advance tickets)!

 

[Peter Mugridge]

The Royal Mail have suspended the Special Delivery service due to the weather.

 

[Tom B]

After a wait on the phone of 1 hour (good to see East Coast are keeping to the National Express level of customer service), all is resolved - hopefully.

 

[barrykas]

After a wait on the phone of 1 hour (good to see East Coast are keeping to the National Express level of customer service), all is resolved - hopefully.

To be fair to East Coast, I believe they have just one call centre that deals with everything, and they're snowed under (pardon the pun) with weather-related calls.

And don't get me started on Trainline! At least the staff in Scotland generally had a clue. Now they've outsourced everything to India, they're absolutely hopeless! Today's cock-up of the day being a ticket that involved the passenger travelling back in time between Birmingham Moor Street and New Street.

Cheers,

Barry

 

[taxidave]

I always nominate to pick up the tickets from the machine at my local station no matter where the journey is starting from.

 

[Deerfold]

I always nominate to pick up the tickets from the machine at my local station no matter where the journey is starting from.

Which is fine if your local station has that facility. There's vast swathes of Northern territory without.

 

[Greenback]

To be fair to East Coast, I believe they have just one call centre that deals with everything, and they're snowed under (pardon the pun) with weather-related calls.

And don't get me started on Trainline! At least the staff in Scotland generally had a clue. Now they've outsourced everything to India, they're absolutely hopeless! Today's cock-up of the day being a ticket that involved the passenger travelling back in time between Birmingham Moor Street and New Street.

Cheers,

Barry

Another reason not to bother with the Trainline for anything!

 

[taxidave]

Which is fine if your local station has that facility. There's vast swathes of Northern territory without.

I didn't realise you were still living in the dark ages up there.

 

[bengolding]

Another reason not to bother with the Trainline for anything!

But if you apply for a refund on many of the TOC booking sites, the refund will be processed by the Trainline in Edinburgh so despite trying to avoid them, you have no choice but to deal with their inefficiency!

 

[Greenback]

I have never needed to get a refund from a TOC booking site! I only use them for advance long distance trips when I cna plan ahead and save money! For other trips I am happy to buy from our friendly conductors and stations!

 

[142094]

To be fair to East Coast, I believe they have just one call centre that deals with everything, and they're snowed under (pardon the pun) with weather-related calls.

Must be the one at Newcastle Central. Always found them to be of great help, even when under NXEC and GNER.

 

[Deerfold]

I didn't realise you were still living in the dark ages up there.

As Northern don't offer AP fares on any flows that they set they don't see it as a priority so even the two stations in the City of Bradford don't offer AP pickup.

 

[158757]

I believe Interchange now does, although not 100% on that.

 

[taxidave]

As Northern don't offer AP fares on any flows that they set they don't see it as a priority so even the two stations in the City of Bradford don't offer AP pickup.

So are you saying that everybody has to queue at the ticket office to buy their tickets !!

 

[ainsworth74]

So are you saying that everybody has to queue at the ticket office to buy their tickets !!

Ticket office, that's a laugh! Not many ticket offices in this neck of the woods!

 

[taxidave]

Ticket office, that's a laugh! Not many ticket offices in this neck of the woods!

So how and where do you purchase your train tickets ???

 

[ainsworth74]

On the train from the guard mostly. Obviously there are some ticket offices at the larger stations like Leeds, Manchester, Hull, York and the like, but for the most part it's buy on board.

 

[taxidave]

On the train from the guard mostly. Obviously there are some ticket offices at the larger stations like Leeds, Manchester, Hull, York and the like, but for the most part it's buy on board.

I am totally amazed by that, we have always had a ticket office at Cheltenham, even in the pre-BR days and ours is not a big station, just two platforms and small country stations like Stroud with just an hourly Swindon train has all the facilities including ticket office, toilets and a cafe.
So my comment, which was meant as a joke, that you live in the dark ages was in fact true.

 

[Deerfold]

I believe Interchange now does, although not 100% on that.

If it does Northern haven't updated this:
http://www.northernrail.org/travel/stations/Bradford+Interchange

It's a couple of months since I've been there so I can't confirm.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I am totally amazed by that, we have always had a ticket office at Cheltenham, even in the pre-BR days and ours is not a big station, just two platforms and small country stations like Stroud with just an hourly Swindon train has all the facilities including ticket office, toilets and a cafe.
So my comment, which was meant as a joke, that you live in the dark ages was in fact true.

There's 11 stations on my rail line, 5 of them unstaffed. However all 5 of these were built in the 80s by WYPTE and North Yorks council - presumably they wouldn't have been economic if they'd had to staff them. I can live with unstaffed stations if it's an improvement not a reduction in service.

Although I do wonder if they could have had a case for staffing them if they'd known just how busy they'd be. There's 4 trains an hour each way at my local station and I think passenger numbers generally justify that (they're significantly higher than Stroud and I suspect there's quite a high level of ticketless travel).

 

[taxidave]

I suspect there's quite a high level of ticketless travel.

I have had two recent experiences of travelling "oop north"; on October 16th I went to Bradford and having alighted my XC service at Leeds I then changed platforms and travelled to Forster Square, on no occasion during this portion of the journey was I asked for a ticket and there was no barrier check at Bradford either going or coming back when I again left the Bradford service and joined my XC train to Cheltenham.
On October 30th I travelled to Preston (on Virgin from Birmingham) and then on to Accrington. At Preston there was a ticket check on the overbridge to platforms 1/2 but I used the subway half way down the platform to transfer. On my outward journey from Preston there were lots of Chelsea fans going to Blackburn some of whom did not have tickets but when they offered the guard a £20 note to pay he said he didn't have any change. On my return I boarded at the unstaffed Accrington station and went back to Preston where again I just changed platforms and boarded my train back to Birmingham and then onward to Cheltenham.
From these to examples I can see that there is ample opportunity to travel ticketless on the Northern rails although I must hasten to add that I did have valid tickets for the whole of my journeys.

 

[janb]

From these to examples I can see that there is ample opportunity to travel ticketless on the Northern rails although I must hasten to add that I did have valid tickets for the whole of my journeys.

Your experiences are not uncommon sadly. My last 3 journeys of any length (2 TPE, 1 Virgin) in the north I haven't been checked. To be fair Northern themselves are usually pretty good in my area. Recently someone who we thought had a season ticket as he walked past every morning, explained he didn't have one because he only got made to pay 2 or 3 times a week so it wasn't worth having one (and thats for an hour long journey).