VTEC Travel Buddy crashing

[SaveECRewards]

The VTEC Travel Buddy app really is a joke of an app. Most of the functionality is just links to the website. The only native functionality is the ticket wallet so the mTickets can be displayed. It's always been unreliable with some people experiencing crashing when trying to load their tickets, but the problem appears to have got more commonplace recently.

The safest piece of advice is NOT to purchase mTickets from the VTEC website, if you need to use their buggy website for any reason (seat selection tool, WiFi codes) then stick with paper tickets or print at home.

Currently VTEC are telling you if the app is crashing then to show the booking confirmation email to the train manager. Presumably the guard can enter the reference code into DORIS (the Android based ticket retail app that VTEC use) to check the validity.

My question is what happens if your mTicket covers other journeys? A few weeks ago I bought a return from Newcastle to Darlington that was valid on any TOC. As the app was working for me at that time it would be fine, but if it was crashing would TPE or CrossCountry be willing to accept the receipt? After all there's no way they can validate it.

So what rights do we have in this situation? It's not the passengers fault that they don't have the ticket that they paid for, but then again it's not the fault of the other TOC as they can't see a valid ticket. Even if they do accept the email there's no way they can verify it's genuine.

 

[91109]

We begged them all last week to remove the m ticket option from the website, which has fell on deaf ears. Couldn't run a bath let alone anything else.

 

[SaveECRewards]

We begged them all last week to remove the m ticket option from the website, which has fell on deaf ears. Couldn't run a bath let alone anything else.

It seems to have been removed now (or at least didn't show up last night for me, but then its appearance was always intermittent), but people could have bought (weekday VTEC) tickets up to 6 months in advance and any advance tickets up to 3 months in advance so even if you block off new sales there's a lot of trouble ahead.

What needs to be done is everyone with a mobile ticket should be allowed a free change to either Print at Home (not everyone, me included, likes an A4 printout or indeed has a printer so shouldn't be automatic) or collect at station. Perhaps even waive the postal fee for those that for some reason don't want to collect from a machine (after all VTEC are messing the customer about and so should make resolution easy).

Can everyone who reads this app please download Travel Buddy if you've not already done so and give it a 1* review in the App/Play store warning passengers about how there is the possibility that the app may crash when trying to display the ticket. The eCommerce department need a shake up they have a website that's lacking features and still has bugs with the potential to overcharge and an app that only has one job (ticket wallet, everything else is just links to the website) and can't even handle that without crashing.

We had the same issues in July when the app launched and now, if anything, it's getting worse. The more people aware the better.

 

[Wallsendmag]

We begged them all last week to remove the m ticket option from the website, which has fell on deaf ears. Couldn't run a bath let alone anything else.

This is untrue as I sent the message to turn off mobile fulfillment until next weeks app update.