Two reference numbers for one booking

[Tubeboy]

I purchased tickets from the XC website for a couple of XC journeys, nothing spectacular, just an advance from Burton to Tamworth, and an anytime day single for the return a week later. Both tickets bought at the same time. Got the confirmation email. Went to the station to collect the tickets. Put in the number, only one set of tickets came out. Confused..... I then scrolled down the email to see a separate collection reference for the other set of tickets. I've never experienced this. Is it a new thing or just particular to XC?

 

[Mojo]

East Midlands' website also did this for me. Is it a feature of theTrainline websites?

 

[transportphoto]

Is it a feature of theTrainline websites?

You have it in one.

TTL based sites split the booking down into reference codes for each journey booked, though not down to each passenger.

TP

 

[Tubeboy]

Thanks for the replies chaps.

 

[gray1404]

Which must make it more expensive for them if you collect the tickets from a TVM of a different TOC. i.e. 40p per ticket issued.

 

[fandroid]

That sounds like a great way of putting customers off buying multiple journey tickets in one transaction! Bonkers. 'we would love you to spend more money with us, but can't be bothered with the few cheap mods necessary to make it a simple process'

Or is it a subtle way of making split-ticketing difficult?

 

[najaB]

Which must make it more expensive for them if you collect the tickets from a TVM of a different TOC. i.e. 40p per ticket issued.

What is this 40p you are talking about?

 

[talldave]

The solution is to use a website that's not as crap. But how does Mr Average Punter find out that other sites are less annoying?

 

[hangus78]

I'm guessing its because TTL doesn't send the orders into the TOD system immediately like some of the other TIS do.

Rather it batches them up instead. If later on it has an issue because one of the tickets has an issue, this way they can still send the others rather than lose the whole transaction.

 

[yorkie]

What is this 40p you are talking about?

The ticket seller gets a small percentage of the cost as commission which is reduced by 40p if the tickets are collected from another operator’s machine or 90p at a ticket office....

I'm told the 40p TOD charge is on a per collection reference basis (regardless of the number of coupons contained within that reference)

So, as far as I can tell, XC are likely to be charged 80p by the rail industry for the collection of tubeboy's tickets, while they'd only have been charged 40p if they had used Atos Webtis for their booking engine, instead of thetrainline.

 

[ooo]

That does seem a bad move by CrossCountry especially as they have no ticket machines themselves.

 

[najaB]

I'm told the 40p TOD charge is on a per collection reference basis (regardless of the number of coupons contained within that reference).

Ah, I misread gray1404's post to mean that the customer was getting charged more, not XC.