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how much commission for selling a ticket?

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ess

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you can buy train tickets from stations, online, travel agents etc
how much commission do they get 1%, 5%, 10%?
how much of the actual ticket price goes to the toc running the service?
 
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wibble

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The standard commission rate rail ticket offices receive is 9%. For travel agents it's 5% but they can charge a booking fee which rail ticket offices cannot. Online rates will vary depending on whether it's a standalone site (e.g. thetrainline.com) or a white labelled TOC site (e.g. ATOS Origin's bookng engine for Southern)
 

FGWman

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I also think that if the TOC selling the ticket gets some of the revenue then they dont get commission on the sale they just get the amount ORCATS allocates to them.

For example FGW selling a ticket from London to Winchester will just get the amount allocated under Orcats as they provide some of the services on that route.

However if they sell a London to Norwich ticket then they will get the 9% as they operate no services on that route.
 

yorkie

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See this detailed answer from about 10 weeks ago:

A user asked about commission earlier:

All online retailers get a small(ish) 2% commission fee for selling the ticket. At a booking office staffed by a TOC, they get 9%.
Not quite...There are different levels of commission depending on point of sale and ticket type, and those are enshrined in the Ticketing and Settlement Agreement (now up to version 9.3).

Standard rates are 2% for season tickets and 9% for almost everything else.

Internet and Business Travel Office sales earn a reduced rate of commission compared to stations, on-train and Telesales issues.

The 2% or 9% is deducted from the fare, and whatever is left is allocated through ORCATS,
If only it were that simple!

The seller gets a debit for the full cost of the ticket, but then gets a credit for the commission (if any).

The operators that get revenue from the ticket get credits for their percentage and debits for their share of the commission.

So if you have a ticket costing £120 and TOC A gets 50%, TOC B gets 25% and TOCs C and D get 12.5% each, and it's sold by TOC E at a station:
  • TOC E gets a debit for £120 and a credit for £10.80.
  • TOC A gets a credit for £60 and a debit for £5.40.
  • TOC B gets a credit for £30 and a debit for £2.70.
  • TOCs C and D get credits for £15 and debits for £1.35 each.

Thus ensuring the debits and credits balance each other.

Things get more complicated with season tickets, as the revenue from those is spread across the validity of the ticket and paid every four weeks.


Cheers,

Barry
 

wibble

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Concise response from Barry! However:

Things get more complicated with season tickets, as the revenue from those is spread across the validity of the ticket and paid every four weeks.

This is incorrect - the money from a season ticket is allocated every day during the validity of the season ticket, with a higher weighting applied to weekdays compared to weekends.
 

TUC

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Even allowing for the lower commission it is still hard to see why on-line sites are allowed to change a booking fee as well. After all their staffing costs will be mimiscule compared to running a station ticket office. All an on-line system has to do is send an electronic instruction to the relevant station machine. Their staffing costs will be almost entirely back-office in terms of financial reconciliations etc. (and even these will be much simpler with no need for handling of cash).The lower commission should be more than sufficient to deal with that and still leave a profit.
 

rail-britain

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The sales person can earn commission
Depending on who they work for
A TOC employed person typically earns 5% rising to 10%

However, Travel Agents also have licensing fees to take into account
The commission is now 3%

As a result I dropped my Travel Agent licence
 

Greenback

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The sales person can earn commission
Depending on who they work for
A TOC employed person typically earns 5% rising to 10%

However, Travel Agents also have licensing fees to take into account
The commission is now 3%

As a result I dropped my Travel Agent licence

If you are suggesting that a booking office clerk earns between 5% and 10% of each ticket sold for themselves, you are very much mistaken!

On train staff can earn commission on ticket sales depending on who they work for. It is an incentive to patrol the train and check tickets, but the rate is much lower than 10%. ATW staff get 3%, I believe.
 

rail-britain

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If you are suggesting that a booking office clerk earns between 5% and 10% of each ticket sold for themselves, you are very much mistaken!
Please refer to original text, depending on who they work for they may earn commission
Where they do they can earn up to 10%
 

Greenback

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Could you clarify what you mean please? It can be inferred from your post that the sales person is at the station, therefore they are the ticket office clerk. The TOC running the booking office cna earn 9%, yes, not the individual.

I would not want anyone to think that someone can earn £400 for issuing a £4k annual season.
 

rail-britain

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Could you clarify what you mean please?
An employee can earn commission
That does not mean all roles do, it depends on their role
Equally, a TE may earn a specific % commission with one TOC, but another TE with a different TOC may not earn any, again TOC and role specific, therefore they can earn commission, not they will earn commission
 

Flamingo

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If you are suggesting that a booking office clerk earns between 5% and 10% of each ticket sold for themselves, you are very much mistaken!

On train staff can earn commission on ticket sales depending on who they work for. It is an incentive to patrol the train and check tickets, but the rate is much lower than 10%. ATW staff get 3%, I believe.

FGW Guards get 1% of the first £1000 taken in a month, 5% unlimited after that
 

Flamingo

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Not wishing to be nosey Flamingo, but does that typically boost your basic up to satisfactory levels? I can imagine somebody like your good self making a fair chunk each month.

I look on it as a bonus, to be honest. It only came in last year, and I haven't really changed my method of working since (I always was a git!). Some of the guys who used to be more "laid back" are now up and down the train like they are on elastic, but I always did tickets. My personal "target" is £200-£250 a day (about £10-£15 a day before tax), and I usually hit this, and very rarely charge full opens (or even new tickets).

It depends on what trains one works. Some trains you can guarantee taking £500, but with the way the link works, everybody gets swapped across all trains, the quiet and busy ones are shared out. (There are rumours of some Guards taking £20-30K a month in tickets in some depots - not mine!).
 

WestCoast

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One of my local lines has almost all unstaffed stations (Northern Rail;)). At weekends, the guards can sell hundreds of pounds of worth of tickets in a couple of journeys if they are lucky and it is busy!

They must do quite well on commission.
 

devon_metro

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I look on it as a bonus, to be honest. It only came in last year, and I haven't really changed my method of working since (I always was a git!). Some of the guys who used to be more "laid back" are now up and down the train like they are on elastic, but I always did tickets. My personal "target" is £200-£250 a day (about £10-£15 a day before tax), and I usually hit this, and very rarely charge full opens (or even new tickets).

It depends on what trains one works. Some trains you can guarantee taking £500, but with the way the link works, everybody gets swapped across all trains, the quiet and busy ones are shared out. (There are rumours of some Guards taking £20-30K a month in tickets in some depots - not mine!).

Presumably Weekend First is quite a lucrative business for TM's these days since it can only be bought on board the train since May!
 

Flamingo

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It's not bad, depends on the line. It used to be more common before ADVANCE tickets came in, these days on the weekend, as many if not more are on 1st class Advance as are looking for Weekend first. If the train is quiet, then most, if not all are Advance.

The Weekend first is more of an "impulse buy" if STD is busy, than pre-planned, as far as I can see.

The nice thing about Weekend First is it's relativly "hassle-free", as in the passengers are sitting there cash / card in hand waiting for you, not "Well, it's like this, my railcard is in my other bag, you can look it up on the central computer, no-one else ever looked for it, the man on the platform said I could catch this train etc"
 

strange6

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I look on it as a bonus, to be honest. It only came in last year, and I haven't really changed my method of working since (I always was a git!). Some of the guys who used to be more "laid back" are now up and down the train like they are on elastic, but I always did tickets. My personal "target" is £200-£250 a day (about £10-£15 a day before tax), and I usually hit this, and very rarely charge full opens (or even new tickets).

It depends on what trains one works. Some trains you can guarantee taking £500, but with the way the link works, everybody gets swapped across all trains, the quiet and busy ones are shared out. (There are rumours of some Guards taking £20-30K a month in tickets in some depots - not mine!).

Thanks for that. In all honesty, It seems to be one of the few really good ideas the TOC's have come up with :)
 

Terryk

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I frequently travel on FGW to and from the West of England. Compared to other TOCs I find the on board ticket checks very thorough. I usually travel First Class either on an Open or Advance and barrier checks will never weed out those who try to travel in first with a standard ticket.

The TMs always seem to be firm but fair.
 

Flamingo

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Some TOC's have always had it, FGW had it, got rid of it, then brought it back.
 

WestCoast

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I quite often ask the guard to sell me a ticket for a future journey that day to save time (obviously I already have a ticket covering the current journey) - they will always do it on Northern but other TOCs seem more reluctant in my limited experience of doing this. What do the guards/TMs on here think?
 

Greenback

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An employee can earn commission
That does not mean all roles do, it depends on their role
Equally, a TE may earn a specific % commission with one TOC, but another TE with a different TOC may not earn any, again TOC and role specific, therefore they can earn commission, not they will earn commission

So you accept that a 'sales person' at a station does not earn any commission, regardless of the TOC? Good, I am glad we cleared that up!

Some TOC's have always had it, FGW had it, got rid of it, then brought it back.

Yes, during my retail training back in 1998 the senior conductor doing the training said he was earning £300-350 a week purely in commission. His normal route was the Berks and Hants, and even allwoing for railway exaggeration, he must have been doing OK!
 

Flamingo

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In those days it seems to have been more lucrative, as they had got rid of barriers in a lot of places. Now that a lot of stations are barriered the big money trains are coming from the small unbarriered stations, like the Hereford run.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
I quite often ask the guard to sell me a ticket for a future journey that day to save time (obviously I already have a ticket covering the current journey) - they will always do it on Northern but other TOCs seem more reluctant in my limited experience of doing this. What do the guards/TMs on here think?
I'm always happy to take money from anybody. The restriction we have is we can only sell seven-day tickets on the day, not in advance, and can't sell Rovers over £300 (as a certain P.Y. should know <(). All other "walk-up" tickets should be available (including tube).
 
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barrykas

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This is incorrect - the money from a season ticket is allocated every day during the validity of the season ticket, with a higher weighting applied to weekdays compared to weekends.
You may wish to take another look at Clause 11-14 and Schedule 28 of the TSA, which certainly suggests that they're calculated by period, rather than daily.

Cheers,

Barry
 

Greenback

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In those days it seems to have been more lucrative, as they had got rid of barriers in a lot of places. Now that a lot of stations are barriered the big money trains are coming from the small unbarriered stations, like the Hereford run.

Are there barriers on the B&H now? And what about the forgotten railcards? That must add up to a bit over the course of a week!
 

WestCoast

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I'm always happy to take money from anybody. The restriction we have is we can only sell seven-day tickets on the day, not in advance, and can't sell Rovers over £300. All other "walk-up" tickets should be available (including tube).

It was only one guard with Virgin who refused. I think it's because they only operate from well-staffed stations, so selling tickets must be rather rare for them (apart from Anytimes/Excesses/Upgrades!)

Interesting that you can sell 7-day Season Tickets (only ever bought from an office/TVM) and that you can't sell most All Line Rovers, what would you tell someone who boarded at an unstaffed halt and wished to purchase such a ticket?
 

Flamingo

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It was only one guard with Virgin who refused. I think it's because they only operate from well-staffed stations, so selling tickets must be rather rare for them (apart from Anytimes/Excesses/Upgrades!)

Interesting that you can sell Season Tickets (only ever bought from an office/TVM) and that you can't sell most All Line Rovers, what would you tell someone who boarded from an unstaffed halt and wished to purchase such a ticket?

We can only sell the seven-day season tickets.

I've never had somebody asking for an all-line rover, but there are certain horror stories about a certain individual using company cheques / dodgy cards to buy them on-board, and the cheques bouncing. I'm not sure what I'd do to be honest, I'd probably ring a grown-up for advice (except for one PY, when I would probably just ring BTP - he is known to them)
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Something just crossed my mind. We don't get commission on UPFN's (and I would imagine the same applies to PF's) as if it goes to court, then the passenger can't argue that the UPFN was issued purely to obtain commission. It prevents a conflict of interest argument
 
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CarterUSM

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We sell 7 day seasons and allow advance renewal from 1200 the day before. Also happy to sell tickets for journeys on another date, but if exceedingly busy I will come back later on in the journey thus giving immediate travellers some priority. Straight 5% for us guards, 3% for the TE's.
 
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