Selected the wrong railcard

[sigma421]

Booked tickets for me and two friends from London-Leeds tomorrow. Booked about a month ago and must have made an error with Railcard selection as I've ended up with 3x Disabled Railcard discounted tickets when my intention was to buy 2x Disabled Railcard tickets and 1x 16-25 Railcard. Contacted Uber who told me they can only cancel all 3 tickets and sell me new ones which is more expensive than just abandoning one of the incorrect DSB railcard tickets and buying a new one.

Are station staff/the guard likely to be sympathetic? I haven't paid less than I would have if I'd selected the correct railcard but I guess the ticket technically won't be valid. Should I just chalk this up to experience and buy a new ticket? (It'd be £29 so is annoying but not fatal).

 

[Mcr Warrior]

@sigma421. How many Disabled Railcards are held amongst the three of you who are travelling together?

 

[sigma421]

@sigma421. How many Disabled Railcards are held amongst the three of you who are travelling together?

Railcards among the 3 of us are

1x Disabled
1x 16-25

 

[swt_passenger]

Booked tickets for me and two friends from London-Leeds tomorrow. Booked about a month ago and must have made an error with Railcard selection as I've ended up with 3x Disabled Railcard discounted tickets when my intention was to buy 2x Disabled Railcard tickets and 1x 16-25 Railcard. Contacted Uber who told me they can only cancel all 3 tickets and sell me new ones which is more expensive than just abandoning one of the incorrect DSB railcard tickets and buying a new one.

Are station staff/the guard likely to be sympathetic? I haven't paid less than I would have if I'd selected the correct railcard but I guess the ticket technically won't be valid. Should I just chalk this up to experience and buy a new ticket? (It'd be £29 so is annoying but not fatal).

You might be ok here, because I think a disabled railcard allows for a travelling companion anyway. Others will know for sure, so hang on for a bit before refunding and re-buying. Exactly the same might happen again.

 

[sigma421]

You might be ok here, because I think a disabled railcard allows for a travelling companion anyway. Others will know for sure, so hang on for a bit before refunding and re-buying. Exactly the same might happen again.

The problem is that I've already used up the companion allowance for one of us. The more I think about this, the more I'm tempted to just buy a new one - it'll save me worrying anyway!

 

[BongoStar]

Are the tickets advances?

 

[sigma421]

Are the tickets advances?

Yes

 

[AlterEgo]

You might be ok here, because I think a disabled railcard allows for a travelling companion anyway. Others will know for sure, so hang on for a bit before refunding and re-buying. Exactly the same might happen again.

You can only have one companion on a Disabled Railcard.

If the tickets are Advances and there are just three people a pragmatic guard would see the fare hasn't been underpaid and just let the passenger off.

 

[father_jack]

Send a twitter to the rail operator you're travelling with giving the train you're booked on ?

 

[sigma421]

Send a twitter to the rail operator you're travelling with giving the train you're booked on ?

Tried that - they weren't especially interested. Eventually gave in and burned some LNER Perks credit on a new ticket - irritating but I would've spent the day worrying (train is the 23:15) and the person with the invalid ticket wouldn't be me, so it didn't seem reasonable to land him with this!

 

[Haywain]

Tried that - they weren't especially interested. Eventually gave in and burned some LNER Perks credit on a new ticket - irritating but I would've spent the day worrying (train is the 23:15) and the person with the invalid ticket wouldn't be me, so it didn't seem reasonable to land him with this!

I would have advised contacting customer services rather than the docial media team as that would have given a better chance of a positive result.

 

[thedbdiboy]

It's always worth seeking a discretionary refund via Customer Services for the incorrectly purchased ticket - if you don't ask etc...

 

[Haywain]

It's always worth seeking a discretionary refund via Customer Services for the incorrectly purchased ticket - if you don't ask etc...

With Uber being the retailer it may be wise not to get one's hopes up.

 

[BongoStar]

Out of interest, is this the norm or just Uber policy. Would other retailers allow refunding of a single ticket I'm a multi ticket purchase?

 

[Adam Williams]

Would other retailers allow refunding of a single ticket I'm a multi ticket purchase?

Depends on the situation. If they're walk-ups, absolutely.

If they're Advances, not unless a re-booking has been made. If a re-booking has been made and the date/time/journey are the same but passenger details differ, the admin fee will be waived if you book via the forum site. People select the wrong railcards/passenger types all the time.

My view is that it's basic TIS functionality to be able to do partial refunds.

 

[Haywain]

Out of interest, is this the norm or just Uber policy. Would other retailers allow refunding of a single ticket I'm a multi ticket purchase?

In this case it is discretionary because it is an Advance ticket, so with almost all retailers it would have to go through a customer services channel.

 

[yorkie]

Uber are are offering a very basic product in terms of customer service etc; they don't really invest in the sort of support that our ticket site offers.

Some people prefer the Uber approach because Uber are able to offer cashback that we can't offer, but when things go wrong, it can be a bit of a pain!

As for tweeting the operator, I am not surprised this didn't work; some operators can, on occasions, seem to get even more hostile towards passengers who booked with a third party, while others charge a £5 or £10 fee for each and every ticket that needs to be changed as part of the booking, rather than one fee for changes to any number of tickets within one booking.

@sigma421 if you don't mind losing out on the cashback that Uber offers, you may want to consider switching to the forum site, for a better customer experience. A small proportion of each sale goes towards the upkeep of this forum

 

[sigma421]

Uber are are offering a very basic product in terms of customer service etc; they don't really invest in the sort of support that our ticket site offers.

Some people prefer the Uber approach because Uber are able to offer cashback that we can't offer, but when things go wrong, it can be a bit of a pain!

As for tweeting the operator, I am not surprised this didn't work; some operators can, on occasions, seem to get even more hostile towards passengers who booked with a third party, while others charge a £5 or £10 fee for each and every ticket that needs to be changed as part of the booking, rather than one fee for changes to any number of tickets within one booking.

@sigma421 if you don't mind losing out on the cashback that Uber offers, you may want to consider switching to the forum site, for a better customer experience. A small proportion of each sale goes towards the upkeep of this forum

Hey! Thanks for the reply, I will consider it, although 10% cash back is a fairly significant amount to lose out on.

For the record, I did buy a new (correct) ticket and as I suspected would happen if I went down this route, the guard didn't check any of the Railcards at all, so it would've been fine.

 

[yorkie]

Hey! Thanks for the reply, I will consider it, although 10% cash back is a fairly significant amount to lose out on.

No worries; yes, Uber are probably making a loss on these transactions and they also have to ensure they really cut their costs to the bone, to be able to offer it!

For the record, I did buy a new (correct) ticket and as I suspected would happen if I went down this route, the guard didn't check any of the Railcards at all, so it would've been fine.

Yes it is often the case that Railcards aren't checked, and if they are checked, many staff would be happy to accept this explanation. The problem is that a significant minority would not, and some companies deploy Revenue Inspection Officers, who can be extremely strict, so you can't really take a chance, even though 90+% of the time it would be fine.

The industry really doesn't do itself any favours; our ticketing site does try to buck the trend, by offering good customer service. But I don't think it's possible to achieve that, and also provide cashback, unfortunately.