Change of Railcard Type

[stuart]

Hypothetical question, but one I'd rather get input to before it happens for real.

I have a Senior Railcard, my partner has a Disabled Person's Railcard. I book us a journey on the VTEC website, entering both railcard details, but when the tickets are printed off they BOTH say "Disabled". Now this is fine so long as we travel together because the Disabled card allows a "companion" to travel for the same discount. But if we have to split up and take different trains, then I'm left holding a Senior card and a Disabled ticket.

Obviously the discount is exactly the same, but it would be nice if the booking system actually did what I asked (i.e. record the two railcards) rather than trying to be "clever".

On a recent journey I asked a VTEC guard (informally) for his view, and he told me that while he wouldn't be concerned he thought there might be some guards who would take a different view. I accept that they'd be entitled to take a strict line as the ticket doesn't match the railcard, but is that really my fault when I gave the booking system the correct information at the start and it chose to ignore it?

I don't see any point in complaining to VTEC about this because their customer service team is adept at deflecting complaints rather than actually answering them, and the chances of getting anyone to understand the issue seem slim.

As a "workaround" I now book tickets separately and match up the seat reservations later, but this hardly seems customer-focused!

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

Hypothetical question, but one I'd rather get input to before it happens for real.

I have a Senior Railcard, my partner has a Disabled Person's Railcard. I book us a journey on the VTEC website, entering both railcard details, but when the tickets are printed off they BOTH say "Disabled". Now this is fine so long as we travel together because the Disabled card allows a "companion" to travel for the same discount. But if we have to split up and take different trains, then I'm left holding a Senior card and a Disabled ticket.

Obviously the discount is exactly the same, but it would be nice if the booking system actually did what I asked (i.e. record the two railcards) rather than trying to be "clever".

On a recent journey I asked a VTEC guard (informally) for his view, and he told me that while he wouldn't be concerned he thought there might be some guards who would take a different view. I accept that they'd be entitled to take a strict line as the ticket doesn't match the railcard, but is that really my fault when I gave the booking system the correct information at the start and it chose to ignore it?

I don't see any point in complaining to VTEC about this because their customer service team is adept at deflecting complaints rather than actually answering them, and the chances of getting anyone to understand the issue seem slim.

As a "workaround" I now book tickets separately and match up the seat reservations later, but this hardly seems customer-focused!

If you have booked the tickets correctly and they print out incorrectly, then it's your issue in the short-term but not in the long-term. If you have time before your journey, contact VTEC customer support and ask them to fix it. Otherwise, buy the cheapest reasonable replacement ticket for the one that has printed incorrectly (or if it's a VTEC station, try to get them to issue it for £0 if you can show them the booking with the different railcard combo), then contact them after your journey to get a refund of this.

If they won't refund you immediately, I wouldn't wait around for their useless internal 'customer services'. Simply send them a Letter Before Action and then if they still don't pay after 14 days, take out a Court claim online. It's a simple and clear cut case of breach of contract. I find that companies take these much more seriously than 'customer services' tickets which inevitably end up on a 'long pile'.

 

[Llanigraham]

If they won't refund you immediately, I wouldn't wait around for their useless internal 'customer services'. Simply send them a Letter Before Action and then if they still don't pay after 14 days, take out a Court claim online. It's a simple and clear cut case of breach of contract. I find that companies take these much more seriously than 'customer services' tickets which inevitably end up on a 'long pile'.

That sounds like using a sledge hammer to crack a nut!

 

[bb21]

If you have booked the tickets correctly and they print out incorrectly, then it's your issue in the short-term but not in the long-term. If you have time before your journey, contact VTEC customer support and ask them to fix it. Otherwise, buy the cheapest reasonable replacement ticket for the one that has printed incorrectly (or if it's a VTEC station, try to get them to issue it for £0 if you can show them the booking with the different railcard combo), then contact them after your journey to get a refund of this.

If they won't refund you immediately, I wouldn't wait around for their useless internal 'customer services'. Simply send them a Letter Before Action and then if they still don't pay after 14 days, take out a Court claim online. It's a simple and clear cut case of breach of contract. I find that companies take these much more seriously than 'customer services' tickets which inevitably end up on a 'long pile'.

Why are you advising people to take a course of action that unnecessarily leaves them out of pocket?

 

[talldave]

Whilst complaining is going to feel like banging your head against a brick wall, it is the corret approach to request that they fix the website. In addition, a trail of brain numbingly frustrating dialogue about the issue would help in your defence should your hypothetical situation actually occur and go pear shaped.

 

[David57]

I had this situation recently, I hold a Senior Railcard, and my Daughter a Disabled Railcard.
The ticket clerk issued me with two tickets, both labeled as Disabled.
So, if i dropped my Daughter off, and then traveled home on my own Senior Railcard, with Disabled ticket, would revenue staff be suspicious?

 

[Deafdoggie]

I don’t use VTEC website, so don’t know their booking system, but I use others, and they ask how many tickets to put on each railcard. Generally they put the railcard discount automatically but you can adjust it. GWR is the exception, as they only ever allocate 1 ticket to the railcard regardless! It is possible therefore to allocate as many (or as few) tickets to each railcard as you want. VTEC May use a different system however. But non of the others have let me down yet.

 

[yorkie]

On a recent journey I asked a VTEC guard (informally) for his view, and he told me that while he wouldn't be concerned he thought there might be some guards who would take a different view.

The vast majority do a great job and would be pragmatic, but there's at least one who I strongly suspect would declare it invalid (who has declared valid tickets to be invalid in the past, with numerous forum members among his victims, and even his own colleagues well aware of his antics), so it is worth protecting yourself against any possible action by asking to exchange/excess the ticket, to avoid becoming the latest victim.

I accept that they'd be entitled to take a strict line as the ticket doesn't match the railcard, but is that really my fault when I gave the booking system the correct information at the start and it chose to ignore it?

It's not your fault, it is the booking system's fault.

I don't see any point in complaining to VTEC about this because their customer service team is adept at deflecting complaints rather than actually answering them, and the chances of getting anyone to understand the issue seem slim.

Very true. Based on complaints I aware of, they will say you are wrong. You will explain why you are not. They will say "I have reviewed the response and it was correct" in an endless loop. Some of them would claim the world was flat if their boss told them to. It's a complete waste of time.

However, as you have posted it here, the relevant people will be made aware of it more directly

As a "workaround" I now book tickets separately and match up the seat reservations later, but this hardly seems customer-focused!

Agreed.

 

[Wallsendmag]

If you took it to a VTEC Travel Centre they would change it for you in the meantime I’ll flag it as a fault when I’m back at work on Tuesday. See service with a smile and no deflection You just need to ask the correct people.

 

[Chris999999]

Had a similar problem booking with virgin for a senior and network card. See
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/incorrect-railcard-assumed.160516/

It seems to be a generic problem.

 

[yorkie]

It seems to be a generic problem.

It depends on the booking engine.

You will see different results on different booking engines, not just for things like this, but in how they interpret the Routeing Guide.

 

[talldave]

Is it poor specification of the booking engine or sloppy (and untested) implementation?

 

[infobleep]

If you took it to a VTEC Travel Centre they would change it for you in the meantime I’ll flag it as a fault when I’m back at work on Tuesday. See service with a smile and no deflection You just need to ask the correct people.

How does one find the correct people totask, without coming on here? If someone went to a travel centre to report such a thing, would it get back to the people who can fix it? I do hope so.

 

[yorkie]

How does one find the correct people totask, without coming on here?

It is often impossible to find the correct people to ask, as they are not contactable directly, for example GWR customer relations did not do anything with the electronic restrictions at Reading causing booking engines to reject valid itineraries. So it remains a problem today, despite existing for years.

In the case of VTEC, contacting the Twitter team might get it passed on to the experts...

If someone went to a travel centre to report such a thing, would it get back to the people who can fix it? I do hope so.

...at somewhere like York, I think there is actually a chance that it would.

 

[Wallsendmag]

It is often impossible to find the correct people to ask, as they are not contactable directly, for example GWR customer relations did not do anything with the electronic restrictions at Reading causing booking engines to reject valid itineraries. So it remains a problem today, despite existing for years.

In the case of VTEC, contacting the Twitter team might get it passed on to the experts...

...at somewhere like York, I think there is actually a chance that it would.

Coming from a Travel Centre background myself I would hope that the majority of Travel Consultants would pass it on to our team.

 

[Starmill]

Is it not a dire indictment of one's employer that contacting the customer relations department is not considered 'asking the right people' given that their only reason for existing is to be the people of whom customers can ask things? If it's neccesary to speak to someone on an unconnected internet forum to get problems solved, then what is the point of having them?

 

[takno]

Is it not a dire indictment of one's employer that contacting the customer relations department is not considered 'asking the right people' given that their only reason for existing is to be the people of whom customers can ask things? If it's neccesary to speak to someone on an unconnected internet forum to get problems solved, then what is the point of having them?

Mostly they are there to protect the right people from the angry hordes. If they inadvertently help a customer in the course of that it's certainly a bonus, but probably not a core benefit to the wider team

 

[Paul Kelly]

Is it poor specification of the booking engine or sloppy (and untested) implementation?

I looked into this a while ago and determining the optimal combination of railcards to use for a given combination of passengers, when more than one railcard is available, turns out to be a surprisingly complex mathematical optimisation problem.

Some booking engines don't bother and just force you to specify how you want to assign the available passengers to each railcard you have. That's not a problem for most people on this forum - but when you have a choice of railcards that you can use and it starts to get complicated with min/max adults/children requirements interacting with minimum fares at certain times of day etc. it can quite quickly get to the stage where it's useful to let the computer work it all out for you. I'm not sure any booking engines have really perfected it yet, but people are working on it!

 

[stuart]

I'm grateful that as a result of this discussion someone "in the know" has picked up the problem and will look into getting it solved. It is however depressing that front-line customer contact centres (and I'm not just referring to VTEC, or even to train operators in general) are nowadays much more about defending and deflecting than they are about solving problems.

 

[Wallsendmag]

I'm grateful that as a result of this discussion someone "in the know" has picked up the problem and will look into getting it solved. It is however depressing that front-line customer contact centres (and I'm not just referring to VTEC, or even to train operators in general) are nowadays much more about defending and deflecting than they are about solving problems.

We do get a lot of "problems" sent to us from the Solutions Centre but I also tend to pick up quite a bit from this forum.

 

[yorkie]

I'm grateful that as a result of this discussion someone "in the know" has picked up the problem and will look into getting it solved. It is however depressing that front-line customer contact centres (and I'm not just referring to VTEC, or even to train operators in general) are nowadays much more about defending and deflecting than they are about solving problems.

The point of some customer relations staff appears to be to act as a 'firewall' and fob people off.

VTEC's customer relations department who deal with emails and telephone calls, whose robotic, dismissive, incorrect responses make me feel quite angry and disappointed at times. I'd describe their tone as highly provocative. They refuse to acknowledge the Conditions of Travel and invent rules that do not exist.

I understand they also call themselves a "Customer Solutions centre" but I have evidence of emails that are the complete opposite of "solutions", and contain downright lies.

David Horne is aware of the problems but does not appear to be doing anything (if anyone has any evidence that he is, I'd love to hear it!), and I heard he's even blocked @SaveECRewards, so I don't hold out much hope.

In contrast, their ticket offices must be among the best in the country. They're not always perfect, but they are, on average, far better than most.

So yes it is great to be able to get straight to experts, instead of dealing with people who try to treat you as if you know absolutely nothing.

 

[Chris999999]

I looked into this a while ago and determining the optimal combination of railcards to use for a given combination of passengers, when more than one railcard is available, turns out to be a surprisingly complex mathematical optimisation problem.

Some booking engines don't bother and just force you to specify how you want to assign the available passengers to each railcard you have. That's not a problem for most people on this forum - but when you have a choice of railcards that you can use and it starts to get complicated with min/max adults/children requirements interacting with minimum fares at certain times of day etc. it can quite quickly get to the stage where it's useful to let the computer work it all out for you. I'm not sure any booking engines have really perfected it yet, but people are working on it!

Perhaps. However if a customer specifies: I require one ticket using railcard X and I require a second ticket using railcard Y, then the booking engine needs to be absolutely certain that there are no circumstances where the purchaser will be disadvantaged by the booking engine making assumptions and delivering something different.

This is a very complex area and it is clear that Virgin are getting this wrong. Unless they can be certain of there being benefits in all scenarios of delivering something else then they need to deliver exactly what the customer requested.

If any booking engine wants to offer some alternative combination of railcard allocation then it needs to ask the purchaser, specifying the savings and any potential disadvantages. I would suggest that it is currently too complex for booking engines to handle. They should deliver exactly what the customer asked for.

There is probably a space for a tool which can analyse and deliver some form of options with various railcard combinations on particular journeys, but I don't really see who would want to develop such a tool, and in reality it is probably going to create enormous problems for the programmers.

As I said, Virgin need to start delivering exactly what the customer requested.

 

[yorkie]

Perhaps. However if a customer specifies: I require one ticket using railcard X and I require a second ticket using railcard Y, then the booking engine needs to be absolutely certain that there are no circumstances where the purchaser will be disadvantaged by the booking engine making assumptions and delivering something different.

Yes but...

This is a very complex area

...is very true.

What if your journey was wholly within the Network Railcard Area and you departed before the Senior Railcard became valid?

What if there are 3 adults and 2 children and you have a Network Railcard and a Disabled Railcard; which Railcard should the third adult be assigned to?

...it is clear that Virgin are getting this wrong.

VTEC's booking engine is by Vix Technology and the fares data is by SilverRail IPTIS.

I do not know if VTEC have a contract with SilverRail directly or if they are subcontracted by Vix (or even if both are sub-contracted from a website creation company). Either way, it will be out of the hands of VTEC staff to fix this.

Unless they can be certain of there being benefits in all scenarios of delivering something else then they need to deliver exactly what the customer requested.

I agree in this case it should be obvious in this case, but in some cases it is not clear what the customer is requesting and you can not always be certain.

If any booking engine wants to offer some alternative combination of railcard allocation then it needs to ask the purchaser, specifying the savings and any potential disadvantages. I would suggest that it is currently too complex for booking engines to handle. They should deliver exactly what the customer asked for.

Do you think that they should not treat a Disabled Railcard as being able to cover two adults if the other passengers in the group hold other Railcards, even if the journey will be discounted for a Disabled Railcard and not the other Railcards?

There is probably a space for a tool which can analyse and deliver some form of options with various railcard combinations on particular journeys, but I don't really see who would want to develop such a tool, and in reality it is probably going to create enormous problems for the programmers.

I agree it is a challenge for programmers. If you put some 'challenging' Railcard combinations into various booking sites, you can see that some handle it better than others.

As I said, Virgin need to start delivering exactly what the customer requested.

It really isn't as simple as that as 1) it's not Virgin delivering it and 2) it's not always clear what the customer has requested.

 

[Chris999999]

Yes but...

...is very true.

What if your journey was wholly within the Network Railcard Area and you departed before the Senior Railcard became valid?

What if there are 3 adults and 2 children and you have a Network Railcard and a Disabled Railcard; which Railcard should the third adult be assigned to?

VTEC's booking engine is by Vix Technology and the fares data is by SilverRail IPTIS.

I do not know if VTEC have a contract with SilverRail directly or if they are subcontracted by Vix (or even if both are sub-contracted from a website creation company). Either way, it will be out of the hands of VTEC staff to fix this.


I agree in this case it should be obvious in this case, but in some cases it is not clear what the customer is requesting and you can not always be certain.


Do you think that they should not treat a Disabled Railcard as being able to cover two adults if the other passengers in the group hold other Railcards, even if the journey will be discounted for a Disabled Railcard and not the other Railcards?

I agree it is a challenge for programmers. If you put some 'challenging' Railcard combinations into various booking sites, you can see that some handle it better than others.

It really isn't as simple as that as 1) it's not Virgin delivering it and 2) it's not always clear what the customer has requested.

It really doesn't matter who Virgin uses to supply tickets, nor does it matter whether they have a contract with them. Virgin have a responsibility to supply what the customer requested, and to resolve any issues created by the booking engine. If the information requested by the booking engine is inadequate to ensure the correct tickets are provided in all cases, then it is Virgin's responsibility to correct this.