Won't it justIt's been available to selected customers since at least late November.
It will be interesting to see if it can match existing split ticketing providers.
Of course even if Trainline were to match these for price, Trainline's decision not to offer a seat selector could still leave Trainsplit in the lead, due to Trainsplit offering that facility.
But the biggest issue here is that most people who use Trainline are probably unaware that they can get split tickets and seat selection elsewhere; their huge advertising budget makes them a household name. This will massively increase the number of passengers using two or more tickets to make one journey, compared to at present.
Using two or more tickets for one journey is totally legitimate, but it's rather like using route specific tickets (e.g. "via Birmingham") in that it adds restrictions which novice users might struggle to realise exist or understand. Some people are prepared to pay a premium for an "any permitted route" anytime fare and such people are more likely to be Trainline customers.
It will be interesting to see what forum members think of it and it will be interesting to see how train companies react too...
Yes, but they are more interested in snuffing out the competition. Anyone who creates a USP in selling tickets will find Trainline after them. Growing the totality of transactions going through trainline will increase their turnover and profits.It's not in their interests to go too far with the splitting, as they will get less commission.
Yes, but they are more interested in snuffing out the competition. Anyone who creates a USP in selling tickets will find Trainline after them. Growing the totality of transactions going through trainline will increase their turnover and profits.
Once you're aware of other ticketing sites, why would you ever use trainline (website) again? The only people I'm aware who use it are people who are not aware that you can buy tickets elsewhere, or misunderstand trainline's advertising.
I don't know about the app as I don't use apps for purchases where mistakes can be costly.
A precursor of the new Virgin Trains product, I presume.
I don't think so, unless the press have got it all wrong - plenty of headlines this morning talking about Trainline "locking horns" with Virgin and suggesting they've rushed this out to pre-empt their plans. Also the new Virgin site is clearly operated by Assertis (a rebadged Traingenius) which again suggests they're unlikely to be working with Trainline.A precursor of the new Virgin Trains product, I presume.
Possibly, although ticket sales on Virgin’s website since they lost the franchise aren’t handled by Trainline.
I don't think so, unless the press have got it all wrong - plenty of headlines this morning talking about Trainline "locking horns" with Virgin and suggesting they've rushed this out to pre-empt their plans. Also the new Virgin site is clearly operated by Assertis (a rebadged Traingenius) which again suggests they're unlikely to be working with Trainline.
Once you're aware of other ticketing sites, why would you ever use trainline (website) again? The only people I'm aware who use it are people who are not aware that you can buy tickets elsewhere, or misunderstand trainline's advertising.
I don't know about the app as I don't use apps for purchases where mistakes can be costly.
Go and speak to the average person in the street and they think Trainline is the only place to buy cheap tickets. They have absolutely no idea that they can buy exactly the same tickets from many other retailers. People accept booking fees as they think it’s the norm
Go and speak to the average person in the street and they think Trainline is the only place to buy cheap tickets. They have absolutely no idea that they can buy exactly the same tickets from many other retailers. People accept booking fees as they think it’s the norm.
Once you're aware of other ticketing sites, why would you ever use trainline (website) again? The only people I'm aware who use it are people who are not aware that you can buy tickets elsewhere, or misunderstand trainline's advertising.
This will massively increase the number of passengers using two or more tickets to make one journey, compared to at present.
Using two or more tickets for one journey is totally legitimate, but it's rather like using route specific tickets (e.g. "via Birmingham") in that it adds restrictions which novice users might struggle to realise exist or understand. Some people are prepared to pay a premium for an "any permitted route" anytime fare and such people are more likely to be Trainline customers.
This is exacerbated by the UI flow too, I think. The split suggestion just shows automatically without the user performing any positive action to request that the app find split tickets.However, as Yorkie alludes to, Trainline offering splits will dramatically increase the number of people using split tickets. This in itself is no bad thing, BUT, 95% of people buying such tickets from Trainline will not be aware of what they are doing, or any restrictions which may come as a result. Inevitably this will result in more complaints as people may well end up getting charged again for some journeys, simply because they hadn't read or understood what they were doing.
This is exacerbated by the UI flow too, I think. The split suggestion just shows automatically without the user performing any positive action to request that the app find split tickets.
The initial modal window that's popped up on the first search doesn't warn of any loss of flexibility - it just states "There's no difference to your journey".
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There is some small grey text on the payment page that states "Specified train(s) only.", but this is the only warning users get. I'm not sure I'd blame users unfamiliar with rail ticketing who get it wrong as a result.
I wouldn't blame users either in all cases. The Trainline is very unclear about lots of things, including TOC Only tickets. I have 3 people on my train now, all travelling separately, but all with TOC X Only Anytime tickets purchased from Trainline, all of whom claim they didn't know anything about the tickets being TOC X Only, it didn't say anywhere and it just said is was Anytime so thought that was OK. They aren't valid and aren't desperately happy they have to pay again. Having said that, there are situations where the information is presented and people simply don't read it OR often simply just don't understand it.