Trainpal not allowing change of advance tickets

[BenS123]

Hi, so I recently booked some tickets from York to Bournemouth but wanted to change them as I realised that I was booked onto Grand Central and LNER offers a far less stressful journey!

They were split advance tickets, but if I go to the booking confirmation and tap change date/time it says "Sorry, you cannot change this ticket.".

The tickets are for the 14th August, is there any reason it is literally not allowing me to change my tickets whatsoever? I thought under the advance ticket terms you were allowed to change advance tickets up to the point of travel maybe with a £10 fee.

They're paper tickets due to the cross-london travel, but it still shouldn't just deny that I can change the tickets right?

Thanks for the help!

(Image: popup stating "Sorry, you cannot change this ticket. If your train has been cancelled and the ticket is not used, you can claim full refund")

 

[Adam Williams]

Has the ToD booking been collected? I wonder if this message should really read "You can't change this ticket online/self-service because it's been printed already".

I don't think I can think of any reasons you shouldn't be able to change the tickets given what you've said.

 

[BenS123]

Hi, yes the ToD booking has been collected but I'm surprised it isn't allowing me to submit a photo of the tickets cut up or post them to their office

 

[Adam Williams]

I agree, it's an odd refunds flow...! Probably one for customer services

 

[Wolfie]

You can normally, with the payment of any change in fare and possibly an admin fee, change the time of advanced tickets. What you normally can't do, except perhaps by getting a refund (when that is allowed and perhaps minus the admin fee) and then buying new tickets, is change the company

 

[yorkie]

Contact customer services and let us know how you get on.

They're paper tickets due to the cross-london travel, but it still shouldn't just deny that I can change the tickets right?

For future reference, the forums site allows e-tickets if you go into advanced options and choose to use contactless to cross London. We also provide a facility to exclude Grand Central (or you could specify SWR+LNER only).

You can also increase the connectional allowance at any interchange station, if you want to allow extra time.

 

[BenS123]

Definitely will be using the forum's site in future, I'll contact customer services and let everyone know what happened

Was mainly concerned about GC's policy of cancelling trains and only allowing tickets to be used on other GC services, sometimes that is 5 hours later...

 

[alistairlees]

Are you trying to change a Grand Central Advance ticket to an LNER Advance ticket?

You can't do this. The Advance ticket T&Cs state:

The origin, destination and Train Company or route shown on the ticket(s) must remain the same

 

[BenS123]

Are you trying to change a Grand Central Advance ticket to an LNER Advance ticket?

You can't do this. The Advance ticket T&Cs state:

Makes sense, just confused as even if I wanted to change to another GC service it still would not let me

Curious, what should I do if GC cancels my service and insists I cannot use my ticket on any other operator? It would be a wait of over 3 hours for the next GC service

 

[Watershed]

Makes sense, just confused as even if I wanted to change to another GC service it still would not let me

Curious, what should I do if GC cancels my service and insists I cannot use my ticket on any other operator? It would be a wait of over 3 hours for the next GC service

Ask them to arrange ticket acceptance on the next available train(s), and when they inevitably refuse, buy whatever ticket(s) are needed and claim back the cost afterwards. Or, if that's not a feasible option for you, take the delay and claim delay compensation.

 

[BenS123]

Ask them to arrange ticket acceptance on the next available train(s), and when they inevitably refuse, buy whatever ticket(s) are needed and claim back the cost afterwards. Or, if that's not a feasible option for you, take the delay and claim delay compensation.

Thank you! I'll see what happens and ask here what to say to GC to claim the cost back if needed

 

[Adam Williams]

@alistairlees is correct, I'd forgotten the route code needs to be the same which excludes changing to LNER for an advance. Still, it's weird it's failing before that point since it presumably won't know the intention of the user.

Curious, what should I do if GC cancels my service and insists I cannot use my ticket on any other operator? It would be a wait of over 3 hours for the next GC service

I think that's the reality of GC, unfortunately. I've known it happen to many people, they're reluctant to re-route passengers onto LNER. @Watershed's advice is good.

 

[Wolfie]

Are you trying to change a Grand Central Advance ticket to an LNER Advance ticket?

You can't do this. The Advance ticket T&Cs state:

You said, in a much clearer manner, what l tried to in post #5 albeit l added a couple of things.