Fast ticket machines

[infobleep]

The time it takes to book tickets online to collect at the station is definitely getting longer with most companies.

I tried to book a return ticket Fratton to Weymouth 90 mins before departure. Only CrossCountry would let me book, offering collection in 15 mins.
Virgin, FGW, SWT and Southern all said pick a later train as we can't deliver your tickets in time.

Pretty poor in this day and age.

I needed to ticket on Wednesday for the evening but wished to collect as soon as possible. It wasn't an advance.

So I booked it on Southern's Web Site, using their full site on my mobile. I then immediately collected it from the machine.

We are talking collected within 30 seconds of purchasing.

I was able to do this because I selected a departure time of at least 2 hours after my current time.

That doesn't work for all rail companies. Just those using WebTIS. Others require the whole 2 hours to deal with it.

I wonder if Trainline will ever consider matching Cross Country with their 15 minute booking. Not that I recommend using Trainline but if they want to innovate as a company rather than stagnate, it might be a good area to love into.

 

[talldave]

The solution is to not select a train. Then immediate collection works (for WebTIS sites).

 

[Hadders]

I needed to ticket on Wednesday for the evening but wished to collect as soon as possible. It wasn't an advance.

So I booked it on Southern's Web Site, using their full site on my mobile. I then immediately collected it from the machine.

We are talking collected within 30 seconds of purchasing.

I was able to do this because I selected a departure time of at least 2 hours after my current time.

That doesn't work for all rail companies. Just those using WebTS. Others require the whole 2 hours to deal with it.

I wonder if Trainline will ever consider matching Cross Country with their 15 minute booking. Not that I recommend using Trainline but if they want to innovate as a company rather than stagnate, it might be a good area to love into.

Why did you not just buy the ticket from the machine?

 

[infobleep]

Why did you not just buy the ticket from the machine?

Because South West Trains TMVs, unlike Southern TMVs, don't allow you to buy tickets from destinations other than where you are starting from. I required a ticket from a different station for travel later that evening.

 

[andrewkeith5]

I buy all of my tickets online from First Great Western, primarily for the nectar points - I don't have the time to mess around with the cashback stuff and 95% of transactions are on my mobile anyway.

The last ticket I bought was purchased between the bus at gatwick airport and the train station, I was standing in front of the machine with card ready to collect and put the collection code in as soon as I had it. All worked perfectly and I was on a train within 8 minutes of getting off the bus!