When eastcoast.co.uk goes, what will be your preferred booking website?

[cf111]

I thought they could, though I tried this for a couple of East Coast trains recently and the ticket office system behaved as if all the seats were reserved.

Was it the last advance in its quota by any chance?

 

[bb21]

But if VTEC switch to a Trainline based booking engine (like the other Virgin and Stagecoach sites) then I doubt you'll be able to choose a specific seat.

XC use thetrainline based engine and allow you to choose your own seat so it is still possible.

 

[CallySleeper]

I thought they could, though I tried this for a couple of East Coast trains recently and the ticket office system behaved as if all the seats were reserved.

Was it the last advance in its quota by any chance?

No. *

 

[Hadders]

XC use thetrainline based engine and allow you to choose your own seat so it is still possible.

I'd forgotten that I do hope they retain webtis although I somehow doubt it.

 

[andrewkeith5]

I will use Southern if I'm buying a flexible ticket that I might not need to use, or First Great Western for everything else because I get nectar points on everything from them. Cashback websites tend to cause me more hassle than they're worth for the relatively small transactions I usually make, however they are almost all trumped by making all my rail purchases through my Santander 123 credit card, where I get 3% cashback on anything I buy from a TOC (and cashback on a whole bunch more stuff besides), without having to mess around with anything.

 

[185143]

I will use Southern if I'm buying a flexible ticket that I might not need to use, or First Great Western for everything else because I get nectar points on everything from them. Cashback websites tend to cause me more hassle than they're worth for the relatively small transactions I usually make, however they are almost all trumped by making all my rail purchases through my Santander 123 credit card, where I get 3% cashback on anything I buy from a TOC (and cashback on a whole bunch more stuff besides), without having to mess around with anything.

If you're buying a flexible ticket, why not buy from the ticket office?

 

[bb21]

If you're buying a flexible ticket, why not buy from the ticket office?

Money back guarantee.

 

[CockneySparrow]

Are loyalty schemes considered that big an incentive?

Fortunately I would most use EMT who give a £1 discount on advance tickets; somewhat of a 'reward'. Second would be East Coast, with nectar set up the way it is it remains to be seen whether there will be any rewards for loyalty (regular travel) or use of their website. Hopefully their 10% discount will continue at least.

Nectar points only available if your journey includes a VEC train otherwise you get nothing
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I usually use Virgin due to:

a) half price online off peak singles
b) nectar
c) East Coast not doing points on purchases under £20

No Nectar points on Virgin unless travel by Virgin, East Coast will be set up the same, current East Coast you earn points on everything if the whole journey is by EC otherwise you have to spend £22
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I tend to use the FirstGreatWestern site, I get Necter points that way which I can use for saving on food...

You will probably find that after you have used the Nectar points in Sainsburys that your shop would still be cheaper at Asda or Tesco lol

 

[ainsworth74]

Money back guarantee.

Though if you don't need reservations the money back guarantee is just as good from a ticket office as it is online

 

[Kite159]

Though if you don't need reservations the money back guarantee is just as good from a ticket office as it is online

Although some of us don't have the luxury of a ticket office at the local station, only a TVM.

 

[ainsworth74]

I believe the guarantee is just as good from there as it is from a booking office

 

[ASharpe]

I believe the guarantee is just as good from there as it is from a booking office

All of the TVMs I usually use can only sell tickets from where they are located. And most can't do Plusbus either.

After next month I'll be buying a lot more walkup tickets from my local TVMs but Southern will get all of the complicated stuff and reservations.

 

[Techniquest]

I've booked almost all my recent tickets via the FGW website, except for two Advances, which I was using the Virgin Trains app on my phone for, and I was in a hurry that evening to get them before the availability went! Lost 94 Nectar points because of my refusal to wait for my Mum to get off the laptop!, the Nectar points from which are slowly mounting up.

Added 136 Nectar points to my Mum's Nectar card so far this year, which I'm sure she'll be glad of when we get closer to Frothmas, which seems to be creeping up fast already! I know that might not sound much (I have no idea how much that converts to in terms of value in Sainsburys), but it'll soon mount up. Quite, all being well nearer to the big March trip, I should be adding another 72 points to that. By the end of November 2015, when we'll be seriously organising Frothmas food shopping, I estimate I'll have easily added around 1,000 points to her Nectar card. If memory serves, 500 points is £2.50 of spending power in Sainsburys, so I'll have contributed a minimum of £5 towards the Frothmas 2015 shopping just from buying train tickets. Again, it won't sound like much but at current prices that covers half the price of a 8 bottle box of Magners cider, which will pretty much cover the Frothmas Day alcohol requirement! As The Blue Lot always say, every little helps!

I know the above could well be considered off-topic, but I include the above to try and demonstrate how, although not as good value as the East Coast Rewards scheme, Nectar points aren't totally worthless!

Still waiting to see what the final plan for Virgin East Coast's rewards scheme will involve, but the option to earn points to use with Virgin Atlantic could be interesting. If the redemption values and all that are good, I could well end up using VEC a lot! Mind you, if earning points is only on VEC travel, then it won't be much good to me as most of my travel is well away from the ECML.

So for now, I'm using FGW for all my bookings, unless it's things like almost every rover and ranger. TopCashBack and Quidco aren't worth the effort for me, as most of my travel is not with EMT, GatEx or TPX. 1% cashback on my usual bookings is just not worth the huge effort to get it, quite frankly. It would be a different story if I lived on the TPX route

 

[andrewkeith5]

Though if you don't need reservations the money back guarantee is just as good from a ticket office as it is online

No ticket office has ever refunded me in full. There's always a totally pointless admin fee. No such thing from the Southern website.

The other reasons I try and avoid ticket offices are the usually lenghty queues, the dubious advice and generally unknowledgeable staff who typically don't know how to do what I need them to or try and stop me using or buying tickets or excesses I know are valid, and the fact that Southern's resourcing team are totally incapable of keeping their ticket offices manned during the published opening hours so you can never know if the blasted things will be open!

Generally I try and avoid station staff (no offence intended) unless its to thank them for good performance in delay/adverse situations. Where I live (and particularly at Gatwick, my most used station), the staff frankly cause more problems than its worth - I know what I want, when its valid and how to use it, and I don't need to be treated like I've never seen a train before.

 

[talldave]

No ticket office has ever refunded me in full. There's always a totally pointless admin fee. No such thing from the Southern website.

The other reasons I try and avoid ticket offices are the usually lenghty queues, the dubious advice and generally unknowledgeable staff who typically don't know how to do what I need them to or try and stop me using or buying tickets or excesses I know are valid, and the fact that Southern's resourcing team are totally incapable of keeping their ticket offices manned during the published opening hours so you can never know if the blasted things will be open!

Generally I try and avoid station staff (no offence intended) unless its to thank them for good performance in delay/adverse situations. Where I live (and particularly at Gatwick, my most used station), the staff frankly cause more problems than its worth - I know what I want, when its valid and how to use it, and I don't need to be treated like I've never seen a train before.

Tend to agree as regards Gatwick. Although there are a couple of well informed staff, many still play out the "off peak is after 9.30" story. However, when my favourite TVM failed to spit my tickets out, three members of staff rallied round to get it opened up and recover them, for which I was immensely grateful.

I always use Southern's ticket website and get 4% quidco cashback as well as Tesco Clubcard points on the credit card.

Sadly, one of my regular tickets cannot be bought online, so I have to buy it from a TVM. At least with a Southern machine you can buy tickets from somewhere else - but if you want tickets for tomorrow, forget it - you can only do that after 4pm and even then, not for Off Peak travel the following day - pathetic.

And why their TVMs are designed for credit card holders who are only 4ft tall I have no idea!!

 

[ainsworth74]

I fear that my joke may have been missed. I meant the guarantee is as good as Southern's website because if you decide not to travel you don't buy a ticket which is basically the same deal as the website because if you decide not to travel you don't collect the ticket and get a refund online.

I was being a bit silly and it seems this has been missed

 

[Welshman]

And why their TVMs are designed for credit card holders who are only 4ft tall I have no idea!!

Could it be so that people with disabilities and seated in wheelchairs can operate them?

 

[talldave]

Could it be so that people with disabilities and seated in wheelchairs can operate them?

I suspect that is the case and that's fine, but why then fit a cover over the PIN-pad which means that anyone over 4ft (ok, maybe 5ft!) cannot see it? I almost have to kneel down to see the digits and I'm really not that tall!

So Southern management are either all in wheelchairs, all 4ft tall or, maybe, they never have to buy tickets and so have never experienced how crap their TVMs really are?

 

[andrewkeith5]

So Southern management are either all in wheelchairs, all 4ft tall or, maybe, they never have to buy tickets and so have never experienced how crap their TVMs really are?

It's got to be the third, surely? I don't find the PIN pads too bad, but then I never have to enter my PIN on them. But the machines themselves are almost universally crap in almost every respect.

I've never once seen a day at Gatwick when fewer than three machines are out of service or cash/card only.
One in three tickets I collect from Three Bridges aren't printed properly - if, that is, you can get the damn things to even print them because it's almost impossible to get the touch screen to respond to a touch without risking serious damage to your finger and even worse damage to your sanity! I once refused to travel on a ticket from a Three Bridges machine until the ticket office had endorsed or reprinted it because the print quality was so poor the ticket was almost illegible and I had no intention of trying to argue with an RPI that it was actually legitimate.
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I fear that my joke may have been missed. I meant the guarantee is as good as Southern's website because if you decide not to travel you don't buy a ticket which is basically the same deal as the website because if you decide not to travel you don't collect the ticket and get a refund online.

I was being a bit silly and it seems this has been missed

Sorry! It's extremely difficult to detect silliness and jokes unless they are very obvious on a forum like this, so most people tend to take what's written at face value... Sadly there is very little personality in written text amongst a thread of serious posts!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Tend to agree as regards Gatwick. Although there are a couple of well informed staff, many still play out the "off peak is after 9.30" story. However, when my favourite TVM failed to spit my tickets out, three members of staff rallied round to get it opened up and recover them, for which I was immensely grateful.

I always use Southern's ticket website and get 4% quidco cashback as well as Tesco Clubcard points on the credit card.

Sadly, one of my regular tickets cannot be bought online, so I have to buy it from a TVM. At least with a Southern machine you can buy tickets from somewhere else - but if you want tickets for tomorrow, forget it - you can only do that after 4pm and even then, not for Off Peak travel the following day - pathetic.

And why their TVMs are designed for credit card holders who are only 4ft tall I have no idea!!

It's not just the gateline staff - it's the people they have stationed around the TVMs to press "buy" and select the most expensive ticket for you - and the cleaners who seem to think they know more about ticketing than regular travellers yet revert straight back to "I don't know, it's not my job" when you prove them wrong. If it isn't your job, why bother trying to make it your job, waste everyone's time and dish out incorrect information to people who might not know better?

I haven't yet bothered with the cashback through Southern but I might start to play with it - my credit card gives me 3% cashback on train fares already so another 4% wouldn't go unloved and would add up to a hefty amount!

 

[Red Dragon]

I usually used the East Coast booking engine but shall now move to Southern or TPE.

Maybe we could use the knowledge and technical/commercial ability within the forum to set up our own engine, or use the buying power to lock onto an existing engine and negotiate a preferential deal.

There must be ernormous buying power within this forum.

Can anyone make a stab at how much Forum Members spend in total annually on train tickets?

Martin Lewis has just used this sort of buying power to negotiate better gas and electricity prices with an energy group for many of us.

Food for thought - or a non-starter ?

 

[GodAtum]

I bought FGW tickets through Southern which worked well.

 

[RJ]

Sadly, one of my regular tickets cannot be bought online, so I have to buy it from a TVM. At least with a Southern machine you can buy tickets from somewhere else - but if you want tickets for tomorrow, forget it - you can only do that after 4pm and even then, not for Off Peak travel the following day - pathetic.

Can't you get around that by changing the origin station for travel the following day? It certainly works for getting Off Peak tickets for travel on the same day.

I use http://www.traingenius.com/ . Not the greatest interface ever and there are credit card and booking fees, but I can use Amex and also get Avios on my purchases. To get the most out of it, I usually buy multiple tickets at once.