unused ticket collection / change of journey

[YorkC]

I've got a journey booked from York to King's Cross on Wednesday, that was part-paid for by a refund of another advance ticket I'd previously bought. The original ticket was a TOD collection.

In these circumstances, East Coast issue only print at home tickets, and the original ticket is required in order to use it. I tried to collect this afternoon and got the message that the booking reference wasn't found. I spoke to the staff who were a bit confused, but after some checking established that the original ticket (for December) had been deleted from the system as it had been more than 28 days since the scheduled departure date. I was told to contact Web Support who could "have something printed at York" for me.

I've just done so now and Web Support have informed me that as I hadn't collected the ticket within 28 days of its scheduled date, nothing could be done. I can't, they say, have my self-print ticket endorsed for travel on Wednesday and, in order to travel on Wednesday, I'll have to buy a new ticket, even though they know the original ticket hasn't been collected. At this point, my phone connection went as I was going through a tunnel on the train and I thought it was pointless to call back immediately.

This seems pretty ridiculous. Having searched the EC Passenger Charter for "28 days" I can't see any reference made to this requirement and I don't know how I'm supposed to have known this. (I do not rule out that this is buried away in the T&Cs somewhere, in which case I bear responsibility for this -- but in any case, this still seems utterly ridiculous when they know I'm not attempting to avoid payment or whatever and have legitimately purchased tickets.)

Has a similar thing ever happened to anyone on here / does anyone have any useful advice? Should I try customer service next?

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Hmmmm, East Coast website does have the following on it (my bold):

"Please note

If your new travel date is within the next seven days you may only be offered Special Delivery. If you’d rather collect them at the station you can request this by calling Web Support on 03457 225 111.

If you chose to collect your original tickets via Ticket on Departure, you must do this within 28 days of the original travel date as you'll need to be able to show these along with the new tickets you're issued.

If you change your ticket to an Off-Peak, Super-Off Peak or Anytime ticket, it will only be valid for use with the train company services shown on your original Advance ticket.

The number of passengers and Railcards used can’t be amended. "

http://www.eastcoast.co.uk/customer-service/change-ticket/

How this stands up in a legal sense I'm not sure (IANAL). I've got to be honest though, I'm not surprised uncollected bookings disappear after about 28 days, particularly Advance tickets. How long do you think they should hold the uncollected tickets for? Two months? Three months? A year? "Just long enough for [you] to pick it up"?

 

[YorkC]

Hmmmm, East Coast website does have the following on it (my bold):

"Please note

If your new travel date is within the next seven days you may only be offered Special Delivery. If you’d rather collect them at the station you can request this by calling Web Support on 03457 225 111.

If you chose to collect your original tickets via Ticket on Departure, you must do this within 28 days of the original travel date as you'll need to be able to show these along with the new tickets you're issued.

If you change your ticket to an Off-Peak, Super-Off Peak or Anytime ticket, it will only be valid for use with the train company services shown on your original Advance ticket.

The number of passengers and Railcards used can’t be amended. "

http://www.eastcoast.co.uk/customer-service/change-ticket/

How this stands up in a legal sense I'm not sure (IANAL). I've got to be honest though, I'm not surprised uncollected bookings disappear after about 28 days, particularly Advance tickets. How long do you think they should hold the uncollected tickets for? Two months? Three months? A year? "Just long enough for [you] to pick it up"?

Well, fair enough.

I think "long enough to be able to collect it ahead of your/my/anyone's rescheduled journey" would seem like a reasonable amount of time, TBH. I (and many many others, I'd wager) only collect tickets a few days or so prior to departure in order to reduce the risk of losing them: I don't think it's too unreasonable to expect that it was possible to collect just before (rescheduled) travel. As it's only possible to buy tickets a max of 12/24 weeks in advance, there's a clear upper limit here that would seem reasonably logical to me.

In any case, they seemingly /do/ store a record of the ticket purchase and /do/ have a record that it hasn't been collected, so it seems that the storage of this amount of data isn't an insurmountable problem. It seems a bit daft that they can't just endorse my new ticket for travel on this basis.

 

[bb21]

I think "long enough to be able to collect it ahead of your/my/anyone's rescheduled journey" would seem like a reasonable amount of time, TBH. I (and many many others, I'd wager) only collect tickets a few days or so prior to departure in order to reduce the risk of losing them: I don't think it's too unreasonable to expect that it was possible to collect just before (rescheduled) travel. As it's only possible to buy tickets a max of 12/24 weeks in advance, there's a clear upper limit here that would seem reasonably logical to me.

The same problem remains, as a ticket can be changed multiple times, so in theory a ticket uncollected after 5 years may have been changed over 30 times and still required, as an extreme example. (Likelihood virtually zero of course.)

The current system is not really broke. It is just that unfortunately whatever the system is, some people will end up caught up in it, and unfortunately for you this time, it looks like it may have been the case. I do think however it is a little unreasonable that Web Support refuses to help out, as they could clearly see the transaction (or could they? It's not clear from your post).

Not sure what else I can suggest, sorry. A web-only half-price Super Off-Peak may be your best option if nothing else can be done (but must be bought before midnight on the previous day).

 

[YorkC]

The same problem remains, as a ticket can be changed multiple times, so in theory a ticket uncollected after 5 years may have been changed over 30 times and still required, as an extreme example. (Likelihood virtually zero of course.)

The current system is not really broke. It is just that unfortunately whatever the system is, some people will end up caught up in it, and unfortunately for you this time, it looks like it may have been the case. I do think however it is a little unreasonable that Web Support refuses to help out, as they could clearly see the transaction.

Not sure what else I can suggest, sorry. A web-only half-price Super Off-Peak may be your best option if nothing else can be done (but must be bought before midnight on the previous day).

Fair enough on the first point, but (and I realise you weren't saying it was likely) it does seem vanishingly unlikely that anyone would change a ticket like this more than a couple of times. Completely take the point about no system being perfect and that it's in large part me being just unfortunate.

Thanks for the reply though. Unfortunately I have to be in London on Weds morning so it looks like I'm going to have to buy a peak ticket / very expensive advance, or go down on Tuesday night unless I get any joy from CS.

Edit - as I understand it, web support could see the transaction and all details. When I went into the ticket office at King's Cross this afternoon to query things, the details of my reservation/purchase appeared on screen when the ticket office worker put my reservation code in.

 

[bb21]

In that case, I do think it is unreasonable for them to refuse to help. They have the money, and printing out the details of the original transaction and endorsing it is hardly going to cost anything. I had a similar problem a while ago but luckily staff at the Virgin-run ticket office happily endorsed a printout of my transaction details after all other avenues were exhausted.

But rules are rules.

 

[yorkie]

How this stands up in a legal sense I'm not sure (IANAL).

If you have a solicitor, consult them, and if they advise you go for it, maybe someone needs to 'test' the system?

In practice, many Guards would just accept the P@H ticket without question, some would accept your explanation the problem, and perhaps only a small number would actually charge you for a new ticket. But there is at least one who would definitely charge you (I think several of us can think of one ).

 

[Bletchleyite]

I suppose an answer to this for the railway is that, like an air ticket, an Advance (or indeed any other ticket) would have a period of validity within which it may be changed, perhaps 6 months would suit. After 6 months it can be completely deleted.

Neil

 

[Romilly]

YorkC: You have a private message about what you can book for Wednesday morning at this late stage.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

The same problem remains, as a ticket can be changed multiple times, so in theory a ticket uncollected after 5 years may have been changed over 30 times and still required, as an extreme example. (Likelihood virtually zero of course.)....

I've had a passenger re-book Advance tickets four times, eventually ending up with Off-Peak Returns. Taking into account booking horizons, period of validity for tickets and NRCoC refund periods, I personally think that holding a ticket for over a year would be a bit much, but there you go.

 

[YorkC]

I've just got off the phone to Customer Services. Everyone was pleasant enough, but very happy to fob me off. I first got told that the requirement to collect within 28 days of expiry was in the Passenger Charter, before then being told it was in the NRCoC when I said I'd read the Charter and it wasn't there. When I asked which clause of NRCoC it was in, I was put on hold and then told it was Section 30 (below):

30. Validity
A Season Ticket gives you the right to travel between particular stations or within particular
zones during the period up to and including the Season Ticket’s expiry date. A Season
Ticket may only be used by the person to whom, or on whose behalf, it was issued.
Except in the case of a Season Ticket which is an Electronic Ticket, the relevant stations or
zones and expiry date are shown on the ticket. This includes the right to start, break and
resume, or end your journey, as described in Condition 16. If you use the Season Ticket to
travel beyond the station or zones for which it is valid, you will be treated as having joined
the train without a ticket for that additional part of your journey and Condition 2 or 4 will
apply. The routes you are entitled to take with a Season Ticket are explained in
Condition 13.

... when this clearly isn't about that at all.

Anyway, I got told to send everything in (existing tickets and any new tickets that I buy) and that they'd get back to me. If anyone's interested, I'll post to say how I get on.

 

[yorkie]

I find with EC you have to really persist to get anywhere. Some of their Customer Services staff seem to be rather lacking in intelligence and based in Plymouth of all places (!!)

Sadly, I no longer have a direct contact in Customer Services. Things were easier back then