National Express coach open returns - how do they work? (from Victoria, LDN)

Hey all, just got back home from visiting my dad in london (heart attack put him in hospital there :rolleyes: ) and almost didn't make it due to, presumably, me messing up something with a National Express open return ticket. Unfortunately I've gotta do pretty much exactly the same thing again in a few days and as I've no idea what went wrong, and because I can't find any info on the NE site, and everyone but the driver seemed happy, I was hoping someone here would know.

Basically, ordered online (LSTEN = 10% off :money:), open return to victoria from leeds, entered booking ref into ticket machine in leeds which printed out a single ticket with outward details and a return section just saying to call XYZ or visiting an NE travel show to validate return details. Did the validation from a hospital phone (note to self - payphones + 0870 don't mix well), asked for the 8pm back (this was about 6.30pm at the time), confirmed my details, lady says it's done and gives me a 4 letter code and tells me to tell the driver this. I presume that's all along with the ticket I had originaly.

Cept when I show the driver my ticket he basically says something to the effect that I don't have the right ticket and anyone could have written down said code, motions towards the ticket officie and tells me to get help there. It's now about 7.50.

Ticket office look at ticket ref on original ticket, look stuff up online, confirm it's booked and fine, tell me to find a supervisor somewhere and it's now 7.55. Run back to coach guy, tell him ticket officie said it was fine, grab a supervisor, he checks the reference on the radio and, well, dissapears pretty much, then just says he'll let me on the coach but he shouldn't (nothing to do with ticket ref, think he was just busy, dont think he even got a reply over radio).

So I've no idea where I went wrong. AFAIK there was only one reference number, it was deffinately booked fine, I had the right coach, I think the ticket ref was on the passenger list the driver had printed out but his issue was with my single ticket with only outgoing details and a blank open return section (obviously). Something was mentioned about neading a proper ticked being printed out but it was now 8.00 so no time to figure that lot out.

And just for the lulz, I used the same ticket machine in leeds when I got back, put in my ref number for collection of a ticket and nothing came out, so I dunno if a ticket office would have given me much more.

Only up side was the driver didn't seem to let anyone on without a fight. I mean, you got an 8 digit ref with 100 million different combinations, and you just happen to turn up to the right bus at the right time in the right place having guessed said 100m to 1 ref matching one on the passenger list, plus 4 char code (PAZR fwiw, presumably it's identicle for all NE over a prolonged period if it's so easy to "just write it down") and the "real" ticket holder just happens not to turn up? Does this happen so much on NE that the drivers have to be that careful? :rolleyes:

If anyone knows the secret please let me know I would've asked the driver/s cept they still had another stop when I got off (didn't wanna keep them) and the main guy sure weren't in the mood at victoria

EDIT: silly me. using alphanumerical codes, that would be 10 to the power 34 possible combinations for a ticket ref, which is too big for even google to figure out. and suddenly only having a ticket ref to get a ticket printed out at a machine doesn't seem too stupid after all cept i guess they stick with the 3 char 5 digit system quite a bit?