Advance tickets purchased on East Coast for EMT (Nottingham-Bury St Eds) wrong date

[pjnathanail]

I purchased advance tickets through the east coast website for travel this sunday from nottingham to bury st edmunds. By accident i actualy bought tickets for this saturday instead and when i tried to amend them it toldmei would have to get a bus from ely. Our friends will now pick me up at ely so:

• Can I get a refund?
• Can I ammend them and change the destination?
• Will I have to pay two ammendment fees (outward and return)

Any other info would be helpful

Thanks

 

[island]

Officially you cannot refund them and cannot change the destination. You can amend the time and booked train at a cost of £10 per ticket plus any fare difference (that will be £20 for both outbound and return, as all advances are single tickets).

However, you could well get some flexibility if you pick up the phone. East Coast customer services may be favourably disposed to letting you change the destination if you explain that you would have booked differently due to the bus substitution. But they may have less flexibility because it's an EMT ticket. Might as well try it though, all you've got to lose is the cost of a phone call.

 

[pjnathanail]

Officially you cannot refund them and cannot change the destination. You can amend the time and booked train at a cost of £10 per ticket plus any fare difference (that will be £20 for both outbound and return, as all advances are single tickets).

However, you could well get some flexibility if you pick up the phone. East Coast customer services may be favourably disposed to letting you change the destination if you explain that you would have booked differently due to the bus substitution. But they may have less flexibility because it's an EMT ticket. Might as well try it though, all you've got to lose is the cost of a phone call.

Thanks very much for your help. I will call them this evening.
Presumably if I change the time and date nothing stops me from travelling short at Ely because it is not barriered and I would have to leave for the bus anyway.

 

[calc7]

Thanks very much for your help. I will call them this evening.
Presumably if I change the time and date nothing stops me from travelling short at Ely because it is not barriered and I would have to leave for the bus anyway.

That would be breaking the terms and conditions of the ticket; though I will leave it up to you to decide as to whether this can be or would be enforced.

 

[pjnathanail]

That would be breaking the terms and conditions of the ticket; though I will leave it up to you to decide as to whether this can be or would be enforced.

I won't be doing that, as three of us are travelling EC's website would have charged £60 ammendment fee (£10 per person each way) so it is cheaper to scrap the tickets and buy new ones, but I will call web support this evening to see if I can persuade them to adjust the rules!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Having called the EC web support, they cannot change the destination or ticket type or refund it. They can change date and time for total ammendment fee of £60 which is ridiculous. I am going to buy an off peak return to Ely, but I was wondering:

• If the train my advance tickets are valid on was delayed could I "decide not to travel" and claim a refund
• Will I be able to pick up the tickets on Sunday (after the trains they are valid on have left) soley for the purpose of getting the refund if applicable!

 

[MCR247]

But that'd have to be a severe delay for you know in advance and decide not to leave home and travel?

 

[hairyhandedfool]

....

• If the train my advance tickets are valid on was delayed could I "decide not to travel" and claim a refund
• Will I be able to pick up the tickets on Sunday (after the trains they are valid on have left) soley for the purpose of getting the refund if applicable!

The TOC can find out when the ticket was issued, so I'd not advise it (it would be fraud).

 

[bb21]

Will I be able to pick up the tickets on Sunday (after the trains they are valid on have left) soley for the purpose of getting the refund if applicable!

Many ticket machines will not let you collect a ticket which has already expired.

 

[MikeWh]

Many ticket machines will not let you collect a ticket which has already expired.

Really? If an advance ticket has been changed to allow travel on a future date then you still need the original ticket to validate the excess. I had no trouble picking up a "supposedly" useless single to York three weeks after it was dated for as the whole trip had been put back a month.

 

[bb21]

Really? If an advance ticket has been changed to allow travel on a future date then you still need the original ticket to validate the excess. I had no trouble picking up a "supposedly" useless single to York three weeks after it was dated for as the whole trip had been put back a month.

I unsuccessfully attempted to collect an Advance and a walk-up ticket (both expired) from several machines last year. They were to be submitted for refund so I had to write in without the tickets. Southern had to recall the bookings from their system.

Maybe if the tickets are amended, there is a flag related to the booking that could be reset to allow for collection.

I can only speak from experience and it could also well be that there is no consistent approach amongst different TOCs or different TVMs even.