Southern Unused Ticket Refund Feature

[Coolzac]

I am all for criticising rail companies for when they fail the travelling public, however as I am sure some of you are already aware they have an excellent feature which I used yesterday:

https://www.southernrailway.com/tickets/buy-tickets/money-back-guarantee

Basically, if you buy a 'walk up' ticket (e.g off-peak day return) with them online but then opt not to travel, you can have a refund as long as you haven't printed them off.

I think this is sensible and very useful. Doesn't make up for all their other failings, but even so, praise when it is due.

Do other TOC's have something similar?

 

[bubieyehyeh]

It used to be far simpler, if you failed to collect the tickets, it refunded your online purchase automatically, no need to request a refund. No longer the case

 

[BluePenguin]

It is not a full refund as most of the time charge you a £10 admin fee. This is ground breaking stuff and Southern are the first I have heard of to do this

 

[Haywain]

It is not a full refund as most of the time charge you a £10 admin fee.

They are quite clear that a full refund applies, without an admin fee, when the ticket type is covered by the Money back guarantee. In my opinion that means that "most of the time" the fee will not be applied.

 

[Joe Paxton]

It is not a full refund as most of the time charge you a £10 admin fee. This is ground breaking stuff and Southern are the first I have heard of to do this

Southern have offered this for years, initially under the 'Rainy Day Guarantee' name, changing to the 'Money Back Guarantee' as now. The other GTR brands also now offer it.

For a while they also offered it on Southern's own Advance tickets (for travel entirely on Southern services), but this ended some time ago.

 

[skifans]

I'm sure someone else will be able to know the exact details but tpe to allow chances of advance tickets (date and time only) online without an admin fee. Their page at https://www.tpexpress.co.uk/help/refunds suggests the same system will also refund refundable tickets but I've only personally used it for the former.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

I'm sure someone else will be able to know the exact details but tpe to allow chances of advance tickets (date and time only) online without an admin fee. Their page at https://www.tpexpress.co.uk/help/refunds suggests the same system will also refund refundable tickets but I've only personally used it for the former.

Personally, I would always use the CrossCountry site instead. They also offer fee-free Advance changes - but whereas TPE have to send out the changed Advance (well, an excess) by post (thus meaning you have to change it at least 2-3 days in advance of travel), CrossCountry support ticket collection, e-tickets or m-tickets, as they simply give you a refund on the old Advance after you buy the new ticket (which doesn't need to be an Advance either). So you can change the Advance anytime before travel, even if you've already picked up paper tickets. The only issue is that sometimes the CrossCountry site simply won't show your purchase history correctly, missing out transactions for some reason.

 

[skifans]

Personally, I would always use the CrossCountry site instead. They also offer fee-free Advance changes - but whereas TPE have to send out the changed Advance (well, an excess) by post (thus meaning you have to change it at least 2-3 days in advance of travel), CrossCountry support ticket collection, e-tickets or m-tickets, as they simply give you a refund on the old Advance after you buy the new ticket (which doesn't need to be an Advance either). So you can change the Advance anytime before travel, even if you've already picked up paper tickets. The only issue is that sometimes the CrossCountry site simply won't show your purchase history correctly, missing out transactions for some reason.

Yeah, I agree with you that Cross Countrys policy is more favourable, for me personally though as a 16-25 railcard holder I get a greater discount (50% vs 33%) is I book through TPE's own website, and just the routes I tend to travel mean I most frequently find myself on their trains.

 

[gray1404]

I am assuming the Cross Country that if you have picked up the advance tickets already they require you to post them back before they will refund you?

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

I am assuming the Cross Country that if you have picked up the advance tickets already they require you to post them back before they will refund you?

Yes, but at least they give you the option to do so, rather than TPE who insist on posting out an excess.

 

[dmncf]

A few weeks ago I chose to use the Southern website to buy three Super Off-Peak Return tickets from London Marylebone to Wolverhampton, so that I could make seat reservations on the CrossCountry Trains leg of the journey. When I picked up the tickets yesterday I was frustrated to find that no seat reservations had been made, even though I am 100% sure that I requested seat reservations when buying the tickets - I actually used the Money Back Guarantee to cancel a previous set of identical tickets that I had bought, because I realised I had forgotten to request seat reservations!

Has anyone else used the Southern website and had their requested seat reservations fail to be made?

Are there other websites that offer a similar Money Back Guarantee that are more reliable for making seat reservations?

 

[Hadders]

This might not be anything to do with GTR. There's an increasing tendency for TOCs not to allow seat reservation when using Super Off Peak tickets. For clarity this isn't the historical Super Saver 'SSR' but more recent Super Off Peak tickets. LNER and Virgin are guilty of this. The website used to book the tickets seems to be irrelevent.

 

[_toommm_]

Yeah, I agree with you that Cross Countrys policy is more favourable, for me personally though as a 16-25 railcard holder I get a greater discount (50% vs 33%) is I book through TPE's own website, and just the routes I tend to travel mean I most frequently find myself on their trains.

TPE doesn't honour the discount AFAIK when changing advances

 

[dmncf]

This might not be anything to do with GTR. There's an increasing tendency for TOCs not to allow seat reservation when using Super Off Peak tickets. For clarity this isn't the historical Super Saver 'SSR' but more recent Super Off Peak tickets. LNER and Virgin are guilty of this. The website used to book the tickets seems to be irrelevent.

Wow - I had never heard of this. Would this denial of seat reservations also happen if you bought your ticket at a ticket office?

 

[Clip]

Ill have to praise Northern and their web sales team for refunding an unprinted ticket for me last week - was in me bank the next day no admin fee or anything

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

Wow - I had never heard of this. Would this denial of seat reservations also happen if you bought your ticket at a ticket office?

It's down to the relevant TOCs and the restrictions they have placed on reservations on their services. It's platform agnostic - doesn't matter whether you book through a ticket office or a website, if the TOC has blocked reservations in the National Reservation System, it won't work.

 

[Surreytraveller]

They are quite clear that a full refund applies, without an admin fee, when the ticket type is covered by the Money back guarantee. In my opinion that means that "most of the time" the fee will not be applied.

I would find it hard to understand how an admin fee could be charged, if the process is automatic, and no admin is actually involved

 

[tsr]

It used to be far simpler, if you failed to collect the tickets, it refunded your online purchase automatically, no need to request a refund. No longer the case

It never did this when I regularly used to use the website to purchase (and occasionally refund) tickets 5+ years ago, which for the avoidance of doubt was under the old Rainy Day scheme. So any such feature must either have only briefly been in use since then, or else in the murky depths of history?

 

[Joe Paxton]

It never did this when I regularly used to use the website to purchase (and occasionally refund) tickets 5+ years ago, which for the avoidance of doubt was under the old Rainy Day scheme. So any such feature must either have only briefly been in use since then, or else in the murky depths of history?

I don't recall such a feature ever existing (i.e. automatic refund if ticket not collected).

 

[bubieyehyeh]

Southern did have a system where if you didn't collect it automatically refunded, but no longer.

 

[sarahj]

The was/has been an issue with people abusing this. Buying tickets, not collecting, traveling using the booking on the phone*, and then claiming a refund. When we started to be able to print tickets out on board (still not trainline ones) some people were/are actually disappointed. *We were supposed to sell them a new ticket when they were 'unable' to collect, but the grief we used to get!!!

 

[bubieyehyeh]

So perhaps GTR could bring it back the auto refund now they you can print on board.