Virgin Trains Tickets Postal Delivery

[Bill Badger]

Just received an email from Virgin Trains saying that they will now be charging £1 to deliver tickets by post, although Fast Ticket & et-ticket will still be free.

Maybe it's just me, but if there's time I would always rather have a physical ticket delivered that have to queue up for a Fast Ticket machine just before travel. I know they can be collected well in advance if i wish to but it's not always convenient.

So for the time being other on-line booking agents will get my business; until they start to charge postage of course!

 

[First class]

Perfectly reasonable I think.

Cheaper costs to the operator to use automated processes.

Why should the postage be free to you? If the TOC has to pay for postage, packaging and someone to process the 'order' then it's more expensive than the other options. I suppose it is also 'greener' to collect from a machine...

 

[Mojo]

Why should the company I buy my shoes from offer me free p&p? Why should the company I buy some of my casual clothes from offer me free p&p if I spend over £50.00? In the case of the clothes shop which has a monopoly of online sales of that brand it's a little thing called customer service, in the case of the other it's about giving a little bit extra in the face of competition and hopefully leading to greater customer satisfaction.

Given travelling by train is very much a time-critical process, I might not want to arrive at the station 15 Min early to collect my tickets, I might not be confident using the TVMs or even physically able to. I may have bought the tickets for a group or another person and want to distribute them at my ease.

 

[First class]

Why should the company I buy my shoes from offer me free p&p? Why should the company I buy some of my casual clothes from offer me free p&p if I spend over £50.00? In the case of the clothes shop which has a monopoly of online sales of that brand it's a little thing called customer service, in the case of the other it's about giving a little bit extra in the face of competition and hopefully leading to greater customer satisfaction.

Given travelling by train is very much a time-critical process, I might not want to arrive at the station 15 Min early to collect my tickets, I might not be confident using the TVMs or even physically able to. I may have bought the tickets for a group or another person and want to distribute them at my ease.

If you want that extra bit of flexibility/ease and time is really that critical, (all of which is NOT Virgin's fault), then £1 is a fair price to pay?

I think the £1 fee is more symbolic that the postal system is on the same road as the Cheque.

 

[yorkie]

Why should we pay £1 to use Virgin when we can use any of the other TOC sites and pay £0? Just don't use their website. Simple!

 

[Welshman]

I couldn't agree more, Yorkie. I've always found the EC website easier to use anyway.

 

[Donny Dave]

Is thetrainline starting to pass on the fees it charges to the various TOCS that use their ticket engine? If so, expect to see surcharges added in the near future for using a credit/debit card and a fee to pick your tickets from a fast ticket machine .....

Oh and sales through the East Coast site to rocket

 

[Lampshade]

Hmm, I sort of agree with it given most businesses charge P&P or some sort of delivery charge, quite surprising that TOCs have been the exception.

For any TPE journeys I'll use the TPE site as there's the student discount, else I'll use Southeastern etc.

 

[northwichcat]

Fast track ticket machines are expensive to install so it's not necessarily a cheaper option, but the investment has been made.

Most stations don't have fast track so unless your starting your journey at a mainline station you can't choose this option.

You could argue that using the ticket office staff cost the TOC more than posting out the ticket.

 

[142094]

Just a couple of points:

1) Do firms that send out a lot of letters, which are nearly always in pre-franked envelopes, get a discount compared to buying just one stamp?

2) How much money do TOCs save by people buying through the website instead of at a station? People in an office will be able to print out and send a lot more tickets than those at the station. That is why some offer an extra 10% off online.

Sounds to me like the railways are slowly becoming a Ryanair case.

 

[northwichcat]

Franking saves a minimum of 5p per letter.

 

[Geezertronic]

I'd have to pay £1 to book via thetrainline.com and still collect via the FastTicket machines so really this would not make a difference to me

 

[Dreadnought]

Why should we pay £1 to use Virgin when we can use any of the other TOC sites and pay £0? Just don't use their website. Simple!

Cross Country have been charging a £1 for postage for quite a while now, so they are not all free.

 

[gordonthemoron]

count yourself lucky, DB charge €3,50 to post tickets. However, almost all tickets can be printed at home/work at no extra cost

 

[northwichcat]

How do German stamp prices compare to UK ones?

€3,50 would be £2.33 under pre-recession exchange rates.

 

[gordonthemoron]

normal sized letter, i.e. the sort you'd get your ticket in is €0,55, about 50p