Lost ticket, but still have booking email

[penaltyfines]

Comparing paper tickets to print-at-home or phone tickets is wrong.

The point was if you lose your paper ticket, you can't have it replaced.

If you lose the confirmation/e-ticket, you can just print another. Losing your phone is pretty unlikely, but that aside you could open it on another phone/laptop etc. These are two-factor 'authentication' - you need the original card for it to be valid.

Why not give people the *option* for AP tickets to be valid only with the card it was booked on. Then if it's lost, another can be re-printed.

Have to admit the rail industry is pretty lazy with innovation...

 

[button_boxer]

Surely a better system than either paperless tickets or having to have the orginal ticket would be print your own ticket as you do with Ryanair boarding passes. That way you get a ticket, can reprint it if it gets lost, and the railway saves on the cost of postage and small pieces of cardboard. You could still opt to have it posted or collect from a ticket machine, and then be subject to the same rules as now.

For "XXX Only" AP tickets this would work, for "XXX and connections" APs where all legs are reserved it is just about doable (but would still involve two or more TOCs agreeing on a common implementation of the system), but for any flexible ticket (including things like an EC and connections where the connection might be a non-reservable Northern service) I can't see it happening unless a common system were imposed on all TOCs as part of their franchises and all guards and ticket inspectors were equipped with the technology to check online in real-time that a particular ticket ID number had not already been used. Which would in turn require a reliable network connection for said technology available everywhere on the rail network.

 

[Deerfold]

Why not give people the *option* for AP tickets to be valid only with the card it was booked on. Then if it's lost, another can be re-printed.

Have to admit the rail industry is pretty lazy with innovation...

Like on East Coast print-at-home? you can choose (from a list) what verification you want - original card / passport / drivers licence (not sure if there were other options).

Presumably they want some verification but don't mind what.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

[I don't want to start a new thread for this because its largely a re-run of the OP's question and the responses it received]

I think I might have a similar conundrum. . . . .

Tomorrow, I'm travelling on a complex journey and picked up all the tickets from a TVM machine late this afternoon. I'd booked the journey via the excellent EC web site and collected 24 coupons/vouchers from the machine in Newcastle. (I even knelt down at the end of the process to check that I'd got them all, similar to a praying position!), then I re-sorted them into the journey's sequence before leaving.
Anyway, when I got back to the office, I noticed that the summary coupon which notes how many vouchers are printed in the transaction said 25, but I only counted 24 (incl the summary voucher).
Now I'm not going to bore you with what journey each of the 24 or 25 vouchers are for, but I really have been struggling to work out just which voucher could be missing. The serial numbers don't seem to help (which you'd think might reveal a gap in the number sequence, but they don't. And the first and last tickets are definitely present and correct.). But I do have a hunch that I know what could be missing - its in the middle of the journey (and therefore in the middle of the serial number sequence where there isn't a break) - and this is what puts me in the same position as the OP.
The relevant part of the journey is a return from Paddington to Bristol (PAD-BRI), with reservations. I have the seat reservations for each leg, but only one Return ticket, marked 'OUT' and also marked 'TWO PART RETURN'.
There isn't a corresponding 'RTN' voucher, but as I noted, then there isn't a gap in the ticket's serial numbers where it would appear.
So, my conundrum is, have I lost the ticket, or has 'the system' failed to print it (and failed to allocate a serial number to it)? There is a clue in that the TVM's display flashed a warning message in a window with a flasing red background that this journey was within a peak period for which it would be invalid, but which I believe is a restriction which does not apply to that leg of the actual journey).

Well, that's my story for tonight. I'll be starting my journey in the morning and will just have to see how I get on during the day with a 'missing' ticket.
And the point of this post? Its simply to keep the 'lost ticket' on FGW thread alive for a little longer!
I'll let you all know how I got on when I get back tomorrow night.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

The return portion would have the same serial number as the outward portion.

Go to the ticket office with the CTR reference number and all the printed tickets, they should be able to check what has been printed and if one has not been printed they should be able to re-issue them, but it may take a while to resolve, so get there early!

 

[yorkie]

[I don't want to start a new thread for this because its largely a re-run of the OP's question and the responses it received]

I think I might have a similar conundrum. . . . .

Tomorrow, I'm travelling on a complex journey and picked up all the tickets from a TVM machine late this afternoon. I'd booked the journey via the excellent EC web site and collected 24 coupons/vouchers from the machine in Newcastle. (I even knelt down at the end of the process to check that I'd got them all, similar to a praying position!), then I re-sorted them into the journey's sequence before leaving.
Anyway, when I got back to the office, I noticed that the summary coupon which notes how many vouchers are printed in the transaction said 25, but I only counted 24 (incl the summary voucher).
Now I'm not going to bore you with what journey each of the 24 or 25 vouchers are for, but I really have been struggling to work out just which voucher could be missing. The serial numbers don't seem to help (which you'd think might reveal a gap in the number sequence, but they don't. And the first and last tickets are definitely present and correct.). But I do have a hunch that I know what could be missing - its in the middle of the journey (and therefore in the middle of the serial number sequence where there isn't a break) - and this is what puts me in the same position as the OP.
The relevant part of the journey is a return from Paddington to Bristol (PAD-BRI), with reservations. I have the seat reservations for each leg, but only one Return ticket, marked 'OUT' and also marked 'TWO PART RETURN'.
There isn't a corresponding 'RTN' voucher, but as I noted, then there isn't a gap in the ticket's serial numbers where it would appear.
So, my conundrum is, have I lost the ticket, or has 'the system' failed to print it (and failed to allocate a serial number to it)? There is a clue in that the TVM's display flashed a warning message in a window with a flasing red background that this journey was within a peak period for which it would be invalid, but which I believe is a restriction which does not apply to that leg of the actual journey).

Well, that's my story for tonight. I'll be starting my journey in the morning and will just have to see how I get on during the day with a 'missing' ticket.
And the point of this post? Its simply to keep the 'lost ticket' on FGW thread alive for a little longer!
I'll let you all know how I got on when I get back tomorrow night.

This happened to James Palmer and I at York station, we went to the ticket window and they re-printed the missing coupon ( which, I think, was a seat reservation ).

Let us know how you get on!

 

[Deerfold]

This happened to James Palmer and I at York station, we went to the ticket window and they re-printed the missing coupon ( which, I think, was a seat reservation ).

Let us know how you get on!

I had a seat reservation which failed to print at Leeds station - lucky It was fairly quiet as I collected it about 15 minutes before my train was due to go. East Coast wrote out a hand-written reservation for my East Midland Train. It was also fairly easy to spot as I got a ticket and a receipt and no reservation coupon.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

This happened to James Palmer and I at York station, we went to the ticket window and they re-printed the missing coupon ( which, I think, was a seat reservation ).

Let us know how you get on!

All worked out okay (or will have done when its all over). I couldn't do any of the things others have suggested because I had an early start and was delayed by snow in getting to the station in the morning, however I communicated with EC customer service by email and phone from my first train, and they offered to cover me for the 'missing' Return portion.
(I won't post details 'cos I don't want to publicise a procedure which could be exploited).

What was interesting was the different approach to the situation taken by different staff. The FGW guard on the OUT journey really tried hard to issue me with an excess for the Return but couldn't find the fare in the machine (though he knew it had been there a few days ago!). An EC guard encouraged me to get it sorted at Kings Cross but I wasn't going to have the time there).
I guess it helps to carry all the paperwork when there's any doubt.

 

[yorkie]

I do like Print @ Home, as it avoids these problems and you can bring a backup copy in case you lose it!

Glad it's worked out ok for you Dave

I guess this just shows that we all need to be careful and check we have everything.