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No more DB for staff travel ?

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HowardGWR

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Despite accessing the appropriate sites, I can't find out what the initials FIP actually stand for. Anyone know? Just to be clear, I am not interested in an explanation of what it is, it's the staff ticket department of UIC, but it's the actual three letter acronym I'm interested in. Thanks in advance.
 
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33056

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Jim, only ATOC can issue FIP free passes, Rail Canterbury (and others) can do seat reservations and FIP rate tickets as you have found. Unfortunately you will just have to wait for the free passes to arrive.
 

pendodave

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Hi. I'm just going through my first post-DB booking experience. So far, not so good.

I amagine that ATOC are paying good money for this service, does anyone have any suggestions (apart from the standard ATOC railstaff account) as to how this issue can be raised.

There should presumably be some sort of service level agreement in the contract, which it is hard to believe is being met. If it is, then ATOC deserve a good slapping....
 

158801

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This is taken from a Facebook page dedicated to rail staff travel

As to Mr Milnthorpe’s comment regarding the selection process, we contacted a number of companies who would be able to provide a service of this type. Only IRL expressed an interest in tendering for the work and in any case our research indicated that none could match the access to European fares that IRL have/will have. By contracting with an agent RSTL are doing their best to assist staff travel holders to make their reservations for travel in Europe without having to pay a booking fee. However, please bear in mind that just as the provision of free and privilege rate travel on the services of FIP Carriers is not protected, it should be understood that there is no obligation on RSTL to make a reservation service available or pay the booking fee for such a service.
RSTL will of course review the situation and work with IRL in an effort to make this a success.


This was posted by Adrian Larkin who advertises his job as Senior Scheme Manager at Rail Staff Travel at ATOC.

So I suppose [email protected] ?
 

pendodave

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Thanks for that.

I have raised the issue with my ASLEF branch, as it may be better coming from them than an individual.

Gutted though, as have just had a quote of nearly £30 commission for a trip for the 5 of us from one of the other rail booking companies. Ironically, that quote came straight back by return email, while my IRL request languishes somewhere in the ether after 4 days...

One would have hoped that ATOC provided enough data to IRL to predict the likely demand for the service, and that IRL would have staffed accordingly. It's not exactly rocket science....
 

MAAB

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bookmyrst has failed me twice now, the first time it took 4 weeks to respond to my online request I just cancelled the trip, now I've waited since 19 June on a trip I wanted to do next week. I've also spoken to Canterbury travel but I never heard back from them either. Anyone recommend any of the others?
 

DaiGog

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bookmyrst has failed me twice now, the first time it took 4 weeks to respond to my online request I just cancelled the trip, now I've waited since 19 June on a trip I wanted to do next week. I've also spoken to Canterbury travel but I never heard back from them either. Anyone recommend any of the others?

Just booked some travel with Ffestiniog ([email protected]) who quoted a price and completed the transaction - tickets will be in the first class post tonight - within 3 hours. They levy a small cover charge but the service is very good.
 

Ferrysider

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Seems this new outfit are already falling short. Attempting to book a sleeper from Budapest to Krakow and after 11 days still haven't heard from them. They have a recorded message asking you to wait for the next advisor and then promptly hangs up! Awesome customer experience. Doubtless they underestimated their ability to cope with Railway staff journeys....come back DB!:oops:
 

MAAB

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Seems this new outfit are already falling short. Attempting to book a sleeper from Budapest to Krakow and after 11 days still haven't heard from them. They have a recorded message asking you to wait for the next advisor and then promptly hangs up! Awesome customer experience. Doubtless they underestimated their ability to cope with Railway staff journeys....come back DB!:oops:

Same result for me today, they hang up. I've spoken to ATOC they say the poor lambs are busy and DB didn't tell the new mob how busy they might be, apparently they are dealing with requests from April. I would use any of the others.
 

Polrail

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Seems this new outfit are already falling short. Attempting to book a sleeper from Budapest to Krakow and after 11 days still haven't heard from them. They have a recorded message asking you to wait for the next advisor and then promptly hangs up! Awesome customer experience. Doubtless they underestimated their ability to cope with Railway staff journeys....come back DB!:oops:

Drop me a line, and I'd be happy to sort this out for you.

[email protected]
 

Jim Grozier

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RSTL themselves seem to be still very much at sixes and sevens. My ongoing correspondence with them about a £15 refund (mentioned earlier) from January is still ... ongoing. They actually emailed me a few weeks back to ask if I'd received the refund, I replied immediately to say no, and that was the last I heard on the subject.

Sorry to hear someone has had problems with Rail Canterbury too. I went to their office and got the tickets on the spot - though I appreciate not everyone can do this. My European journey went OK although I could have done with a few more seat reservations really. DB always provided these if asked, but somehow if you're sitting across a desk from someone diligently processing a long list of ticket requests, it's not so easy to press the point.

I've now written to RSTL outlining the problems I had with IR, but I'm not holding my breath ...
 
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Minilad

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Just booked some travel with Ffestiniog ([email protected]) who quoted a price and completed the transaction - tickets will be in the first class post tonight - within 3 hours. They levy a small cover charge but the service is very good.

Yesterday I used Ffestiniog to book a trip to Brussels on Eurostar. Very efficient outfit indeed. I emailed with my requirements and they emailed back within the hour with options and prices. I called and it was all sorted within 5 mins. Tickets should be with me today.
Can't fault these guys one bit
 

davetheguard

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Yesterday I used Ffestiniog to book a trip to Brussels on Eurostar. Very efficient outfit indeed. I emailed with my requirements and they emailed back within the hour with options and prices. I called and it was all sorted within 5 mins. Tickets should be with me today.
Can't fault these guys one bit

Can you give us an idea of the booking fee Ffestiniog Travel charge, and is it a fixed fee or a percentage?

I had to use SNCF/Rail Europe to book a ticket on a Barcelona - Montpelier TGV last year (because DBUK couldn't do it) and the fixed price booking fee was pretty expensive.
 

Minilad

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Can you give us an idea of the booking fee Ffestiniog Travel charge, and is it a fixed fee or a percentage?

I had to use SNCF/Rail Europe to book a ticket on a Barcelona - Montpelier TGV last year (because DBUK couldn't do it) and the fixed price booking fee was pretty expensive.

Just received the tickets in the post. The invoice says cover charge is 8% to a maximum of £30 Per person
The ticket cost was £77.52 and the commission was £6.20.
This is the first time I have used a booking agent so I'm not sure if thats good or bad but the booking was quite close to the day of travel so I wanted someone who would be quick. They certainly were that. I completed the booking around 1615 yesterday and the tickets arrived this morning.
 

davetheguard

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Just received the tickets in the post. The invoice says cover charge is 8% to a maximum of £30 Per person
The ticket cost was £77.52 and the commission was £6.20.
This is the first time I have used a booking agent so I'm not sure if thats good or bad but the booking was quite close to the day of travel so I wanted someone who would be quick. They certainly were that. I completed the booking around 1615 yesterday and the tickets arrived this morning.

I think I paid a booking fee of £8 + £2.25 postage at Voyages SNCF/Rail Europe for my Barcelona - Montpellier tickets.

I certainly think that I will seriously consider using Ffestiniog Travel for any continental travel in the near future. RSTL seem to have seriously got in wrong when they took the contract away from DB UK (if indeed that is what happened).

It would be good to hear what is being done (if anything) to sort things out at International Rail/bookmyrst.
 
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redbutton

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I think I paid a booking fee of £8 + £2.25 postage at Voyages SNCF/Rail Europe for my Barcelona - Montpellier tickets.

I certainly think that I will seriously consider using Ffestiniog Travel for any continental travel in the near future. RSTL seem to have seriously got in wrong when they took the contract away from DB UK (if indeed that is what happened).

It would be good to hear what is being done (if anything) to sort things out at International Rail/bookmyrst.

RSTL have said that IR got the contract because DB didn't bid on the renewal. DB intended to close the Surbiton office, which they subsequently did.

IR was given the contract because they were the only ones to bid for the work. The handover was complicated by DB giving a low estimate of the level of work to expect, and leaving a significant backlog.

Source: Facebook post

I've since read a rumour somewhere else that IR are in the process of hiring some of the ex-DB staff that were made redundant from Surbiton, which should help relieve the pressure.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
I recently went to trainseurope at St Pancras to try booking a two-week holiday involving a combination of FIP coupons and reduced-rate tickets.

The woman was as helpful as she could be, but she couldn't get the computer to book tickets without seat reservations, and she couldn't make the reservations start or finish at a station not named on the ticket. Basically, she couldn't do tickets and reservations as separate transactions. All I ended up buying from her was a Thalys ticket which was global priced with mandatory reservations.

In addition, it appeared that she was using an abysmal 1.15 exchange rate to Euros. It should be closer to 1.40.

In the end, though, I was really glad she couldn't do it, because when I got home I phoned up OeBB who spoke excellent English and were happy to sell me a Vienna-Milan sleeper supplement/reservation, which I could collect from a machine in Vienna when I get there. I then reserved Berlin-Prague-Vienna seats online from ČD's website for print-at-home. I then phoned up NS International and got reservations from quite possibly the most pleasant customer service agent I've ever dealt with, which she emailed to me as a PDF.

It was about half an hour of international calls at 2p per minute (using call2call.co.uk) with agents who spoke excellent English and knew exactly what I wanted.

And I even got to pay in Euro and Koruna on my no-exchange-fees credit card, avoiding the abysmal rates the travel agents charge.

My point is: While the travel agents do have their place- for example, not all routes offer e-tickets- if you already know what you want you may be better off going direct.
 
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Jim Grozier

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In my email to RSTL I suggested that they make it clear on their website that, although International Rail is the preferred provider, various other agencies such as Rail Canterbury and Ffestiniog Travel (RC told me they thought there was also one other company who can do this) can also provide FIP tickets, though there will be a fee. Then people can make their choice - either apply to IR really early and wait, or, if there is not much time or, like me, they are not good at doing everything at the last minute, go through an agency and pay a fee.

Something else I wish I'd also included would have been to suggest that they send the free coupons out with a bit more notice than the standard 7-10 days. In fact I think mine arrived 2 weeks before the trip, but even so, given that RSTL themselves were clearly not functioning normally at that time, I was worried that my entire journey would fall flat because the coupons might not arrive in time.
 

MAAB

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Well my travel dates came and went, not a peep from them, another let down add that to my list of let downs by them
 

Mazza

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RSTL have really messed up by contracting IR to issue staff tickets. You just have to listen to their voicemail message to get an idea of the (lack of) service offered. This needs sorting out urgently please RSTL!
We tried to book through IR to get seats on the Eurostar for ourselves and our grandson. Children's tickets are affordable if booked well in advance but get more and more costly as the travel date gets nearer and then unaffordable. IR were clearly disinterested in this because they didn't get back to us within the next couple of weeks.
I called Rail Canterbury to get immediate efficient service (albeit with a 10% fee).
We travel a lot and the loss of an efficient sevice is SO frustrating.
Come on RSTL, sort this out!
 

Mag_seven

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Does anyone have an update as to how IR are now performing - I need to make some bookings for October using FIP and don't want to get a poor service.
 

Jordy

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I got an email quote back from them in around 12 hours last week - so that part has definitely improved, but I haven't tried booking with them yet!
 

Mag_seven

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Does anyone have an update as to how IR are now performing - I need to make some bookings for October using FIP and don't want to get a poor service.

Decided to get a cheap flight instead. All booked in about 5 mins with no fuss.
 

Mazza

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Hi, we've used Rail Canterbury a few times this summer and they've been extremely efficient. They're on 01227 450088. Fees are 10% of the booking cost, minimum charge £10. They answer the phone, know what they're talking about, and send the tickets within 24 hours. (Reminiscent of good old DB - apart from the fees!)
Even International Rail's phone message has been useless, as others have noticed, asking callers to hold on for a member of staff and then just cutting callers off.
We have family in Brussels and travel frequently, sometimes at short notice for various reasons, and need to sort things out quickly, not just send an email off into the ether not knowing if they'll get back to us or not.
Also, when travelling with our grandkids, we need to book well in advance to avoid paying huge ticket prices, and can't just let things wait until they feel like it.
RSTL need to get this sorted!
 

quarella

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Had a quick look at the IR website. Immediately put off by their suggestions to "visit Germany in the fall" and use of "center". My fairly short notice coupons last year did arrive in time though.
 
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