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Online booking accounts

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LondonJohn

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I only have a couple of email addresses, 1 that I use as my main account and one for junk mail. I also have my work email address which we cannot really use for personal use.

I have set up my East Coast online account using my work email and I tried to change this tonight to my main email address. It says an account is already linked to that email which it would be (Virgin, Trainline or XCountry, SWT, Southern, FGW or something similar).

Is there anyway to close these accounts or deregister the email address so I can change the East Coast email from work to my main personal one as I really don't want to set up another email address to change my East Coast Trains account to.
 
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Clip

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Have you tried just deleting the other accounts?
 

Deerfold

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I only have a couple of email addresses, 1 that I use as my main account and one for junk mail. I also have my work email address which we cannot really use for personal use.

I have set up my East Coast online account using my work email and I tried to change this tonight to my main email address. It says an account is already linked to that email which it would be (Virgin, Trainline or XCountry, SWT, Southern, FGW or something similar).

Is there anyway to close these accounts or deregister the email address so I can change the East Coast email from work to my main personal one as I really don't want to set up another email address to change my East Coast Trains account to.

Are you saying that East Coast says that address is already being used?

It shouldn't affect you that your e-mail is used for any other train sites. I have several accounts all using the same e-mail address with Southern, East Coast, RSH...

I'd go to East coast login and click on "fogotten password" and put in your main address. I suspect you may have already registered and forgotten.

If you then want to keep all your history/loyalty points I think you're going to have to set up a temporary address, redirect your main e-mail linked account to the temporary one and then redirect your work-e-mail linked account to your main e-mail.

Of course this might accidentally trigger "fraud/odd behaviour" detection at East Coast.
 

Bungle73

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Surely an email address used on EC's site should be completely separate from that used on any other site?
 

DaveNewcastle

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I suspect you may have already registered and forgotten.
That is exactly my interpretation too. The message "an account is already linked to that email" is referring to an East Coast account with that email address.
If it helps, its perfectly possible to have 2 accounts with an Operator, each with differing email addresses. This could be of practical benefit in keeping business and personal travel seperate, though you can probably achieve that quite adequately with one account which has 2 (or more) payment cards set up, one for business and one for personal.
 

LondonJohn

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I am puzzled by the replies here. On Virgin, Southern, South Eastern and Cross Country I have the same email address and password for each account. I am pretty sure they are interlinked (going back 10-12 years) The reason that makes me say this as for addresses it has an overseas address that I used in 2002 on the Virgin Trains website.

I have tried to change my email address on the East Coast Trains website to my personal one and it says This email belongs to a different user. I have booked the £25 First Class offer to/from Edinburgh and the confirmation email will go to work. Will just hope that I don't get into trouble but would like to change it.

As an aside LOADS of availability on a Wed/Thu in May in each direction only bout 4 trains over 2 days that you could not get it.
 

Deerfold

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I'd go to East coast login and click on "fogotten password" and put in your main address. I suspect you may have already registered and forgotten.

Did you try this?

I'm pretty sure the accounts will not be linked due to data protection law.

They can probably share information for fraud preventation but I'd doubt they'd do it for any other reason.
 

DaveNewcastle

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I am puzzled by the replies here. On Virgin, Southern, South Eastern and Cross Country I have the same email address and password for each account. I am pretty sure they are interlinked (going back 10-12 years) . . . . .
That is not my understanding at all. If that is how these Companies really ARE operating then I (and others) would be very, very interested to pursue it further with some evidence of inter-Company exchange of personal details.

Please feel free to send me a PM with evidence which will be treated in confidence.
 

tony_mac

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That is not my understanding at all. If that is how these Companies really ARE operating then I (and others) would be very, very interested to pursue it further with some evidence of inter-Company exchange of personal details.

Please feel free to send me a PM with evidence which will be treated in confidence.

I am reasonably sure that, very early on, thetrainline sites were linked.
Possibly this was due to having an account with thetrainline before any of the TOCs had their own, and the logon details subsequently worked on other trainline-powered sites.

I *think* that when you then logged onto another site (with your trainline details), then that account was split at some point.
 

bb21

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I am reasonably sure that, very early on, thetrainline sites were linked.
Possibly this was due to having an account with thetrainline before any of the TOCs had their own, and the logon details subsequently worked on other trainline-powered sites.

I *think* that when you then logged onto another site (with your trainline details), then that account was split at some point.

I agree with this. thetrainline-powered websites used to share each others' log-ins, but that was many moons ago. (I remember being able to log into my account from thetrainline.com (before they started charging fees) despite having only registered with Virgin.

As others have mentioned, WebTIS-powered site work differently and you have to register with each of them separately.
 

tony_mac

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MarkyMarkD

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Did you try this?

I'm pretty sure the accounts will not be linked due to data protection law.

They can probably share information for fraud preventation but I'd doubt they'd do it for any other reason.

That is not my understanding at all. If that is how these Companies really ARE operating then I (and others) would be very, very interested to pursue it further with some evidence of inter-Company exchange of personal details.

Please feel free to send me a PM with evidence which will be treated in confidence.

There's nothing illegal about companies choosing to both outsource their online ticketing to the same provider, and if they did so and:
- that provider chose to build their system with a single ID/password database; and
- each provider's website informed you that this was the case when you signed up

it would be totally fine.

There is a tendency for people to exaggerate what can, and cannot, be done due to "data protection" and it is often simply an excuse for not being helpful.

Operating a common ID/password database wouldn't in itself mean that data was being exchanged between the rail operators either - it could be used solely for online ticket sale transactions.

I presume that originally that was the case for (say) trainline engine sites; but more recently TOCs have become wise to the e-mail marketing opportunities available and hence want their own customer e-mail database unlinked to anyone else's.
 

Deerfold

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There's nothing illegal about companies choosing to both outsource their online ticketing to the same provider, and if they did so and:
- that provider chose to build their system with a single ID/password database; and
- each provider's website informed you that this was the case when you signed up

it would be totally fine.

There is a tendency for people to exaggerate what can, and cannot, be done due to "data protection" and it is often simply an excuse for not being helpful.

Operating a common ID/password database wouldn't in itself mean that data was being exchanged between the rail operators either - it could be used solely for online ticket sale transactions.

I presume that originally that was the case for (say) trainline engine sites; but more recently TOCs have become wise to the e-mail marketing opportunities available and hence want their own customer e-mail database unlinked to anyone else's.


Indeed, but so far as I can tell WEBtis sites are all run by the TOCs each using ATOS software whilst trainline ones are (or were) not - the TOC bits were just a frontend for common back-end software and you'll get through to trainline customer service if you call.
 

MarkyMarkD

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Fair points. I just wanted to point out that sharing data is not inherently illegal; what is illegal is doing things with data without telling the customer that you are going to do it. (Or doing things with it, which are outside your data protection registration, but I didn't mention that bit).
 

LondonJohn

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Ok thanks for your help everybody. I have used my main email address on East Coast and clicked on the forgotten password link and got my password reset.

I don't recall registering with East Coast or GNER as I hardly ever used them. Last time I did use them to book would have been when I was living overseas 10 years ago for a journey Newcastle to Edinburgh when I was in the UK.

I am sure it is something to do with the Trainline set up because for example I do not receive an Email newsletter from East Coast to my personal email address whereas I got an email of the £25 First Class offer to my work email address.

When I returned to the UK on 02 January 2004 I was living in Leamington Spa and used to use the then Virgin Cross Country to book tickets back to the family home in Southampton

So all I need to do now is to ask East Coast to transfer the Rewards to my personal email address with them and then I can stop using my work email address.
 
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