two singles instead of one return

[sauropod99]

I am travelling from Sankey to Crewe tomorrow and bought a ticket in advance. I used the East Midlands site as I can get cashback via another site. I was sold two singles for £14.45, but when I checked on National Rail, I found the return fare is actually £7.90. Is there anything I can do about this? i.e. change it or get a refund? National Rail highlights the return fare. The East Midlands site does show the return fare at the bottom, but it's not as "obvious" as the two singles which are shown at the top!

Next time, I'll just buy a ticket from the station when I travel!

 

[westv]

When you say it isn't obvious, how unclear is it?

 

[yorkie]

The fares quoted above are not the public rate fares; they appear to be Railcard discounted.

Anyway, the EMT site does highlight the Off Peak Day Return as "cheapest", but does allow you to pick more expensive fares and then does not warn you that a cheaper fare is available.

This is in contrast with other websites, which either make it even more obvious by not allowing you to select two singles (e.g. Trainsplit), or do allow that selection but then alert you that a cheaper combination is available (e.g. VTEC; screenshot attached)

It's poor form but I do not know if they are guilty of anything by doing this.. It's certainly worth asking if they'll exchange it. Let us know how you get on.

 

[Wallsendmag]

That's made our day

 

[Joe Paxton]

When you say it isn't obvious, how unclear is it?

Like Yorkie, I have just done a mock booking for this journey using the EMT site (which is a branded version of the Trainline). The cheapest fare seems obvious enough to me, highlighted with an orange outline and the word "Cheapest", though there is indeed a seemingly unnecessary row at the very top which is labelled "Cheapest Standard Single". For journeys such as this, that row doesn't serve much of a purpose (if any?) - a 'sanity check' (similar to that on the VTEC site) should really exist to remove it in such instances.

 

[sauropod99]

Igot a cheapest fare of £7.90 in the column below the £7.80 single. I misread it as being the same thing.

When I tried it on my phone, it went straight to the £7.90 return.

It's a bit of a bummer that you can't cancel or change it without being charged an admin fee, even within 5 minutes of buying the ticket. Amazon e.g. make it easy to amend or cancel orders.

 

[sauropod99]

That's made our day

Why? Are you an RPI?

 

[westv]

Why? Are you an RPI?

VTEC web person I believe.

 

[yorkie]

Why? Are you an RPI?

While many people provide some clues as to what jobs they do, they may not want too much information to be divulged! However I think we can safely rule that one out!

A lot of people who work 'behind the scenes' on rail fare matters browse this forum.

That's made our day

Like @SaveECRewards, I will give credit when it's due, and it's a good feature I think the fact that such measures are in place on other sites could be used as evidence to suggest that a refund should be forthcoming from EMT.

@sauropod99 I would try phoning them. If they will not help you, I think it is be the sort of case Transport Focus would probably take up.

 

[CyrusWuff]

For the sake of completeness, I've played around with other booking engines (specifically Chiltern's, WebTIS, GTR's and Raileasy). Of the four, only GTR's and Raileasy selected the Off-Peak Day Return by default, and neither the Chiltern booking engine nor WebTIS flashed up a "cheaper tickets are available" message.

 

[Starmill]

It's a bit of a bummer that you can't cancel or change it without being charged an admin fee, even within 5 minutes of buying the ticket. Amazon e.g. make it easy to amend or cancel orders.

If you had called Web Support 5 minutes after making the booking, I believe you would have had a good chance of getting a full refund. They can process these without an admin fee themselves. I have even had an Advance ticket refunded in full 10 minutes after I bought it because I had accidentally selected the wrong train. There is, of course, no guarantee.

You will likely find it more difficult if you don't call the same day, but there if you have not yet collected the tickets (assuming you chose ticket on departure) you may find web support in a good mood if you call them.

 

[sauropod99]

If you had called Web Support 5 minutes after making the booking, I believe you would have had a good chance of getting a full refund. They can process these without an admin fee themselves. I have even had an Advance ticket refunded in full 10 minutes after I bought it because I had accidentally selected the wrong train. There is, of course, no guarantee.

You will likely find it more difficult if you don't call the same day, but there if you have not yet collected the tickets (assuming you chose ticket on departure) you may find web support in a good mood if you call them.

I couldn't ring them. It only gave email details. The email acknowledgment arrived about 15 minut5 after the one for the tickets.

To clock things up further, I left my railcard at home. The ticket office at Warrington upgraded one of the singles to a full fare return - and pointed out that I could have had a full refund if I'd bought it from them, but I wouldn't have been sold two singles in the first place!