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CrossCountryTrains Refund and change of journey policies

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jrh2254

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Unfortunately I have to amend a split journey I made with crosscountrytrains. The journey is for tomorrow Burton-on-Trent to Euston splitting at Rugby , and Milton Keynes Central. All tickets are standard returns, super off-peak, no advance tickets.
I tried to go in and :
a) Amend the journey to a different day but the only option it would give me is to change from tomorrow to Thursday? Has this changed or am I too late to change to a date further out? Or does the change of journey concession apply to advance tickets only?
b) I note that the £10 refund fee means that on the split journey is applied to each split booking so not helpful to me.

Thank you.
 
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Haywain

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Book with Confidence is for Advance tickets only, and I’m afraid you’ve just discovered a downside of buying split tickets from a website that doesn’t specialise in splits.
 

jrh2254

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Book with Confidence is for Advance tickets only, and I’m afraid you’ve just discovered a downside of buying split tickets from a website that doesn’t specialise in splits.
Thanks for this. Do you know why 'book with confidence' is for advance tickets only ? What is the rationale?
I managed to get a refund of £16.20 on tickets that cost £56.15, paying 3 lots of £10 cancellation fees (£30) & one ticket cost £9.95 so no refund! So I paid £39.95 in cancellation fees!
Is there a way of limiting cancellation fees with split tickets as I note you said "you've just discovered a downside of buying split tickets from a website that doesn't specialise in splits" eg. if I had used Trainsplit would my losses have been lower? Many thanks.
 

Wallsendmag

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Thanks for this. Do you know why 'book with confidence' is for advance tickets only ? What is the rationale?
I managed to get a refund of £16.20 on tickets that cost £56.15, paying 3 lots of £10 cancellation fees (£30) & one ticket cost £9.95 so no refund! So I paid £39.95 in cancellation fees!
Is there a way of limiting cancellation fees with split tickets as I note you said "you've just discovered a downside of buying split tickets from a website that doesn't specialise in splits" eg. if I had used Trainsplit would my losses have been lower? Many thanks.
Because there is no need to book a flexible ticket in advance, they're the same price on the day.
 

Haywain

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Thanks for this. Do you know why 'book with confidence' is for advance tickets only ? What is the rationale?
Because they are normally non-refundable and changes are very limited. Walk-up tickets however are refundable at any time.
Is there a way of limiting cancellation fees with split tickets as I note you said "you've just discovered a downside of buying split tickets from a website that doesn't specialise in splits" eg. if I had used Trainsplit would my losses have been lower?
Trainsplit would have applied a single £10 admin fee to the refund of these tickets.
 
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CyrusWuff

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Because there is no need to book a flexible ticket in advance, they're the same price on the day.
Also flexible tickets bought at stations are refundable with no admin fee being applied if a change of circumstances means you have to buy a new ticket. (The example given in Knowledgebase being that you've bought an Off-Peak ticket in advance and have to travel on an earlier day).
 

WelshBluebird

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Worth saying that at the moment GWR are allowing walk up / flexible tickets to be changed without the admin fee as part of "Book with confidence", and just from a quick glance some other ToC's are doing the same (EMR and GA at least are). These policies really should be industry wide at the moment I feel!
 
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jrh2254

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The maximum admin fee charged by Trainsplit is £10 per booking irrespective of how many journeys or tickets are involved.
Thanks that is useful to know.

Worth saying that at the moment GWR are allowing walk up / flexible tickets to be changed without the admin fee as part of "Book with confidence", and just from a quick glance some other ToC's are doing the same (EMR and GA at least are). These policies really should be industry wide at the moment I feel!
Thanks for the info., will look into using GWR, EMR, GA in future. It should be Industry wide and they should do more advertising of this perk I think.
 

Merseysider

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It may be worth writing to XC customer service and explaining the situation, & asking for the admin fees to be refunded, or given back as an RTV. Not everybody will agree with me but I’ve always found them to be very helpful.
 

CrispyUK

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Because there is no need to book a flexible ticket in advance, they're the same price on the day.
Although that does conflict with the limited capacity / compulsory reservations being operated by some TOCs, making it very much necessary to book a flexible ticket online in advance in order to secure availability.

(I’m aware that in many cases a flexible ticket can be purchased on the day from ticket office/TVM and you’re unlikely to have problems travelling without reservations, but no guarantee and that’s certainly not the message coming from the industry).
 

kieron

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Connah's Quay
Worth saying that at the moment GWR are allowing walk up / flexible tickets to be changed without the admin fee as part of "Book with confidence", and just from a quick glance some other ToC's are doing the same (EMR and GA at least are). These policies really should be industry wide at the moment I feel!
In addition, Southern have been doing something along those lines for a few years. If you buy a flexible ticket* on their web site to collect from a ticket machine, and claim a refund without picking the ticket up, there's no charge. With advance tickets, you can change the time and date on the same basis.

* There are fees for some types of ticket. Southern list season tickets and "Daysave" ones as products where they would always charge a refund fee. They don't mention Plusbus, and I don't know what other tickets you can buy from them.
 

jrh2254

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It may be worth writing to XC customer service and explaining the situation, & asking for the admin fees to be refunded, or given back as an RTV. Not everybody will agree with me but I’ve always found them to be very helpful.
Thanks , I would but I now have a refund from the company that requested I did not make the journey due to covid issues.
 
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