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thetrainline bug

K

kingston

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I needed to travel from Newcastle to Whitehaven, I was already at Newcastle station and knew I would be travelling on the next train, but needed to travel back at some point on Wednesday afternoon.

I searched on thetrainline app, selected my outbound train and my probable inbound train.

On the 'Ticket options' page, it showed:

Single Tickets
1x Advance Single
1x Off-Peak Day Single
Click to expand...

Exactly what I wanted - fixed train out, flexible off-peak day single back. On the payment page it also said this at the top, and I made payment.

thetrainline then sent me an Off-Peak Day Single for my outbound ticket, and an Advance Single for my inbound ticket?

Surely you wouldn't expect to be shown your tickets back to front out of the order you'd use them, return ticket first and then your outbound ticket second?

Naturally customer services are refusing to rectify the situation!
 
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RailUK Forums

K

kingston

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I didn't know that actually, but only realised when I was on the train and the guard was scanning my ticket unfortunately.
 
B

Bletchleyite

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kingston said:
I didn't know that actually, but only realised when I was on the train and the guard was scanning my ticket unfortunately.
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Getting refunds out of Trainline where the ticket has been scanned and actually used is like blood out of a stone. Very unlikely to succeed.

If it's a cheap ticket probably just write it off, if it's worth more than a tenner changing it to a walk up (which you should be able to do from within Trainline, if not try any booking office who should be able to issue the change as an excess) may be worth the money.
 
K

kingston

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The tickets I bought were £5.90 less than the Anytime Short Return I would have bought if the app was working properly, but changing the ticket will cost £25.10 (CDS) - £7.80 (ADV) + £10 fee = £27.30

The train manager on the outbound train said it would be fine (I wrote down his name from his ID), just let the next train manager know.

Like most, I'm not a fan of paying out my own money to line a FTSE250 company's shareholders pockets to fix their mistakes, so unless they can send me a replacement ticket I guess I'll have to take my chances!
 
Last edited:
StoneRoad

StoneRoad

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I make a similar journey quite often, sometimes only one way, getting a lift with friends for the other directions.

I would buy the tickets as two separate transactions.
 
B

Bletchleyite

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kingston said:
The tickets I bought were £5.90 less than the Anytime Short Return I would have bought if the app was working properly, but changing the ticket will cost £25.10 (CDS) - £7.80 (ADV) + £10 fee = £27.30

The train manager on the outbound train said it would be fine (I wrote down his name from his ID), just let the next train manager know.

Like most, I'm not a fan of paying out my own money to line a FTSE250 company's shareholders pockets to fix their mistakes, so unless they can send me a replacement ticket I guess I'll have to take my chances!
Click to expand...

Unless the guard has endorsed the ticket (I doubt it) there is a very high chance that could end you up with a Penalty Fare or a £100+Anytime fare settlement. I really would not try my luck on that. With the Advance being only £7.80 I'd put it down to experience (not worth £10 to change a ticket worth less than £10) and buy a new Off Peak Day Single if the time of the Advance isn't suitable.

If you speak to a booking office before reaching your final destination on the outward journey there is a small chance they may agree to excess the Single to a Return costing much less, though that would depend on the booking office staff.

AlterEgo said:
What happens if you click “more”?
Click to expand...

Having just tried it it will say "Return: Only valid on booked Northern services".

I agree this is a bit rubbish (it should really say Outbound and Return for these) but the information is there.
 
K

kingston

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Bletchleyite said:
there is a very high chance that could end you up with a Penalty Fare or a £100+Anytime fare settlement.
Click to expand...

I'd take the view under Consumer Rights Act this is breach of contract and forward the cost to thetrainline, but I digress...

Bletchleyite said:
excess the Single to a Return costing much less, though that would depend on the booking office staff.
Click to expand...

I have a e-ticket, would that still be possible?
 
B

Bletchleyite

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kingston said:
I'd take the view under Consumer Rights Act this is breach of contract and forward the cost to thetrainline, but I digress...
Click to expand...

It's not. The information is there, just badly presented. Tap the "more" link and it says what the terms are in each direction.

It's an unusual case of Trainline's UI being rubbish, but it's definitely not breach of contract.

Adam Williams said:
Depends entirely on how useless the staff feel like being on the day. iKB is very clear that the medium of the ticket does not matter!
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However (a) it's not an "entitled" excess, and (b) if the outward was on Sunday per the Trainline screenshot it's no longer possible, you can't excess an expired ticket to something else to "reinstate" its validity.
 
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Bletchleyite

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kingston said:
Breach in terms of ambiguity I mean.
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A slightly bad UI doesn't constitute a breach of contract. Crikey, pretty much every insurer would have breached contract if it did, there's always stuff hidden in the T&Cs!

If you try to change it in the app does the full £10 admin fee apply? Trainline sometimes charges lower fees than required.
 
K

kingston

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Blackpool boy said:
I'm sure you could use any other booking site for your tickets. Just select them separately and add each one to your basket then checkout
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Unfortunately for this journey I have to use the trainline, it's an external constraint.

Bletchleyite said:
A slightly bad UI doesn't constitute a breach of contract. Crikey, pretty much every insurer would have breached contract if it did, there's always stuff hidden in the T&Cs!

If you try to change it in the app does the full £10 admin fee apply? Trainline sometimes charges lower fees than required.
Click to expand...

I respectfully disagree.
 
D1537

D1537

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This happened to me as well, luckily I realised straight away (when I was loading them into Google Wallet) and refunded the tickets and re-purchased them. Since then I always click through to double check if I am buying outward and return legs of different ticket types.
 
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infobleep

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Bletchleyite said:
A slightly bad UI doesn't constitute a breach of contract. Crikey, pretty much every insurer would have breached contract if it did, there's always stuff hidden in the T&Cs!

If you try to change it in the app does the full £10 admin fee apply? Trainline sometimes charges lower fees than required.
Click to expand...
Surely important terms have to be clear?
 
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Bletchleyite

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30907 said:
In this case, the difference in validity between an Advance and an Offpeak is rather significant.
Click to expand...

And if you tap "more info" it tells you what that difference is with specific calling out of which way.

I agree it's a bit rubbish and Trainline should improve it (while it's at it it should also make things clearer when a ticket in a split contains a TOC restriction), but I don't think any legal case exists.
 
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robbeech

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OhNoAPacer said:
Is it a bug or just that they display tickets in price order?
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toffeedanish said:
Or are they in alphabetical order?
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Without wishing to stray too far OT, a third option could well be that they’re in whatever order the software feels like putting them in on the day and another time they may display the other way around.

A piece of inventory management software we pay for (completely non railway related for clarification) outputs list data and often just throws them up in whatever order it happens to decide upon at the time. It has no relation to anything else as far as we can see and the same results can be generated twice and get a different order. The same is true for printing. We have a selection of bar code / label printers and various templates for printing things. The list of templates for example are never in the same order so trying to find the correct one is frankly horrendous. The software manufacturer is aware but doesn’t seem to care, it’s hundreds of pounds per month but there’s likely in excess of 3000 person hours invested in the database so not viable to change. Short and curlys spring to mind.

So back to this, it would be worth experimenting with this to see if it does display in a random order, alphabetical order or price order and whether there is reference to it in their contractual terms. If it is anything other than trip order (which it clearly is) I’d say that was incredibly poor form.
 
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infobleep

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Bletchleyite said:
And if you tap "more info" it tells you what that difference is with specific calling out of which way.

I agree it's a bit rubbish and Trainline should improve it (while it's at it it should also make things clearer when a ticket in a split contains a TOC restriction), but I don't think any legal case exists.
Click to expand...
But you have to know to click on more info. I personally think needing to click on more info on something critical like this isn't enough.
 
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infobleep

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Bletchleyite said:
I agree it's not very good and Trainline should fix it. I don't agree that a legal case about it would stand.
Click to expand...
So what terms in the ticket buying process would need to be prominent to count under the Consumer Rights Act if they weren't there?
 
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