Changing an Advance Cross Country Ticket

[DoubleD55]

My son has purchased an Advance Cross Country ticket from Manchester to Bristol but for family reasons he now needs to travel a day later

Is it possible to change this ticket

The ticket was purchased on the Cross Country website and it's a self print type

Thanks in advance

 

[Joe Paxton]

My son has purchased an Advance Cross Country ticket from Manchester to Bristol but for family reasons he now needs to travel a day later

Is it possible to change this ticket

The ticket was purchased on the Cross Country website and it's a self print type

Thanks in advance

Unfortunately (and annoyingly) self-print and mobile tickets cannot be changed.

Next time if he chooses a regular ticket for collection from the machine, then if he has bought it from the Cross Country website he will be able to change it without the normal £10 admin fee being applied (more info).

 

[DoubleD55]

Thanks for that Joe

But is it still possible to change it by paying the £10 fee

 

[Richard1960]

Thanks for that Joe

But is it still possible to change it by paying the £10 fee

Click on the link above in post 2 (more info) there is a section at the bottom entitled "Already bought a Ticket" looking at it self print tickets or app bought tickets are not eligible.

 

[Joe Paxton]

Thanks for that Joe

But is it still possible to change it by paying the £10 fee

Alas no, sorry if I wasn't clear enough.

Click on the second question on this page - "How can I change my ticket?" - and scroll down to the "What ticket types allow for a change of journey?" heading. You'll see it says:

"Print your own tickets and m-tickets (via our Train tickets app) cannot be changed."


I think this same policy applies to all self-print and mobile tickets on the rail network in this country, regardless of who sold them and which train company they are for travel with. Anyway it certainly applies to Crosscountry's self-print tickets.

Which is a bit rubbish, but that's how things stand,

I'm afraid your son will have to buy a new ticket. Might be worth looking at trainsplit or ticketclever to see if there are any split-ticket savings available for his journey. (For trainsplit, the fee for changing a journey to a different date is £10 even if it involves more than one ticket, I'm not entirely clear what ticketclever's policy is.)

 

[DoubleD55]

Thanks for that Joe & Richard - I can see why the Rail Companies don't allow it but perhaps a big warning should come up when people print their own - that's assuming that they don't already do that and my son just wasn't aware

 

[yorkie]

Thanks for that Joe & Richard - I can see why the Rail Companies don't allow it but perhaps a big warning should come up when people print their own - that's assuming that they don't already do that and my son just wasn't aware

I keep trying to warn people on this forum that mobile/print at home/electronic/whatever tickets are to be avoided!

The train companies are not going to flash up big warnings unless the ORR forces (or at least 'encourages') them to.

 

[Richard1960]

I keep trying to warn people on this forum that mobile/print at home/electronic/whatever tickets are to be avoided!

The train companies are not going to flash up big warnings unless the ORR forces (or at least 'encourages') them to.

Yes this post has taught me something avoid print at home tickets , and app bought tickets , bought in advance.!

 

[Puffing Devil]

Print at home tickets can be reprinted many times and possibly used without an online check, despite being "returned" for changes.

There is the fear that mobile eTickets may also be copied and deployed, even though "returned".

It is harder to copy normal ticket stock and you can be pretty sure that any returned ticket would not have been copied for re-use. (If you had access to ticket stock, even forged, you wouldn't mess around copying advances, you would be printing an anytime ticket for your trip.)

 

[Richard1960]

Print at home tickets can be reprinted many times and possibly used without an online check, despite being "returned" for changes.

There is the fear that mobile eTickets may also be copied and deployed, even though "returned".

It is harder to copy normal ticket stock and you can be pretty sure that any returned ticket would not have been copied for re-use. (If you had access to ticket stock, even forged, you wouldn't mess around copying advances, you would be printing an anytime ticket for your trip.)

Yes not only that I buy quite a few "print at home" concert tickets.

You can ask for the original ticket to be re issued online, and the original wont scan at the concert hall, sounds like this sort of system could be deployed on the railway, so the original becomes voided and flags up at the gates as being so if it is trying to be used .

Just a thought.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Another option that could be done without any security loss would be to make the ticket sit in your online account printable when required, and only once printed would it be frozen against changes. So if you think you might need to change it, don't print it until near/on the day of travel.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes not only that I buy quite a few "print at home" concert tickets.

You can ask for the original ticket to be re issued online, and the original wont scan at the concert hall, sounds like this sort of system could be deployed on the railway, so the original becomes voided and flags up at the gates as being so if it is trying to be used .

Just a thought.

Concert barcode tickets are these days verified online, as the scanners are in buildings which tend to have Internet access. The railway will get there but not quite yet.

However, with Advances, multiple copies wouldn't need online scanners to detect, you'd just need to see if you got the same ticket number on the same train. Yes, it could leave someone with a ticket for two trains, but so could excessing a paper ticket.

 

[Puffing Devil]

Yes not only that I buy quite a few "print at home" concert tickets.

You can ask for the original ticket to be re issued online, and the original wont scan at the concert hall, sounds like this sort of system could be deployed on the railway, so the original becomes voided and flags up at the gates as being so if it is trying to be used .

Just a thought.

Unfortunately, the railway isn't completely connected yet, nor is it possible to get online reliably from a train - see the problem with online only debit cards and ticket sales.

Another option that could be done without any security loss would be to make the ticket sit in your online account printable when required, and only once printed would it be frozen against changes. So if you think you might need to change it, don't print it until near/on the day of travel.

That's a novel solution - though there is always a chance of hardware failure, or a good, old-fashioned, power cut just as you want to print at the last minute.

Concert barcode tickets are these days verified online, as the scanners are in buildings which tend to have Internet access. The railway will get there but not quite yet.

However, with Advances, multiple copies wouldn't need online scanners to detect, you'd just need to see if you got the same ticket number on the same train. Yes, it could leave someone with a ticket for two trains, but so could excessing a paper ticket.

Concert tickets are also a binary event - you go through a single door once. Not the case with many journeys,

With an XS you need to present both tickets - usually you would expect it to be clipped at some point en-route, preventing double use.

With print at home tickets you can produce as many copies as you want, making clipping a moot point.

 

[Joe Paxton]

Yes this post has taught me something avoid print at home tickets , and app bought tickets , bought in advance.!

I can see the benefits of an m-ticket if I wanted to buy for imminent travel, avoiding potential queues at ticket offices etc (especially if in a bit of a rush) - though of course if lots of people did that it would lessen the business case for ticket offices (or multiple ticket counters at busier stations), which could lead to not-good outcomes.

In particular I can see a decent use case for m-tickets when combined with Crosscountry's on-the-day Advance fares - look up and check fares on your mobile, then buy a suitable ticket there and then with no need to go and collect a physical incarnation of it.

On the whole though I remain pretty wary of them.

 

[Joe Paxton]

Another option that could be done without any security loss would be to make the ticket sit in your online account printable when required, and only once printed would it be frozen against changes. So if you think you might need to change it, don't print it until near/on the day of travel.

That's a novel solution - though there is always a chance of hardware failure, or a good, old-fashioned, power cut just as you want to print at the last minute.

There is that - and haven't we all had arguments with printers just at the point when you really, really just need them to stop being obstinate and just do what they should!

However, Neil's solution could work well for m-tickets too - with the 'option' for a ticket redeemed for a 'real' ticket closer to the event. Though the problem then, as well as people failing to understand and do this, could be people being unable to get a data connection to their mobile in order to 'unfreeze' the ticket.