£5 to sit down on train!!!!!!!!!!! (national express)

robt_2

AdrianHi wrote: »

Perhaps indicitive of the general mood of the rail traveller these days? The system is full of illogical inconveniances.
Commute to/from London Waterloo and there are ticket barriers, you cannot get off the platform/on the train without a ticket, no doubt eliminates fare dodging. I don't have a problem with this, but why I am I woken up or interrupted from what I'm doing on my journey to have my ticket checked?

Because not everyone gets off at a station with ticket barriers? You are not the only person on the train. Why on earth do you think you should not be interrupted and asked to show a ticket for the service you are using?

Why can't I renew a season ticket before midday the day before the one I have expires, forcing me to queue up early in the morning on the day I need to travel because the tick office is closed when I return the night before.

To be honest I thought that you could renew upto seven days in advance for a monthly ticket. Are you using monthly or weekly?

Did that last sentence make sense? Well it makes more sense than the ticket availability policy.
Of course I can get around it by ordering tickets onlien and having them delivered.... for an extra £3 fee :rolleyes:

Who do you order online with and what is the £3 fee for? For example, debit card, crredit card, delivery etc?

Lemonade_Pockets

I have to say as a regular National express customer this has really p!ssed me off.

I travel regularly from shenfield to London no problem here as i never reserve a seat, but my other regular journey from London to York/Leeds this will put the cost of the journey up by almost 10% as i often reserve a seat specifically a table one so i can do some work.

I agree its annoying that people reserve seats but then don't turn up, but why not wait 5mins and see if the person gets on then take the seat?!?!?!? I do this all the time if i've booked a open ticket and just turned up....can never understand why there are idiots sat/stood at the ends of carriages when there are clearly free seats.

Don't see why people with common sense need to pay a extra £5 because of all the other idiots.

Back to the car me thinks sod trying to save money and be green.

N.b Up untill now been a happy NEC traveller for over a year with absolutley zero complaints.

Bogof_Babe

Apparently it won't apply to Advance and off peak bookings, so don't all panic if those are what you use.

I expect the charge is partly to cover the pay of the employee who has to go around putting the little tickets in the back of the seats. At least if you have a booked seat you will be well within your rights to chuck someone off it if they are in it when you board. Sometimes it doesn't seem worth the hassle, but if you've actually paid for it....

Lemonade_Pockets

Thats good news might not affect me after all. The principle is still absurd.

Like easyjet and Rynair who charge for everything including payment - winds me off the clock.

robt_2

Lemonade_Pockets wrote: »

Thats good news might not affect me after all. The principle is still absurd.

Like easyjet and Rynair who charge for everything including payment - winds me off the clock.

Do you know this is how it always used to be right across the country?

Lemonade_Pockets

No i didn't but it makes no difference.

Train travel is already complicated enough with stupid quirks that mean things like split ticketing and booking two singles works out cheaper than a simple return.

Why make it more complicated?

I like travelling with national express east coast and use their website to book all my train travel because (except the quirks mentioned above) it offers a simple what you see is what you pay policy.

ticketcollector

As for the headline, this is exactly what was written in the metro this morning.

I always remember that seat reservations were £1 each, but the charge was free if you were buying a ticket for that same train.

omelette451

AdrianHi wrote: »

I'd be livid if I couldn't sit down for over an hour because someone half way along the line has reserved a seat.

Couldn't you sit in that seat for the 'half a journey' it was available for, and thus avoid standing all the way?

In any case, train operators have to leave a certain proportion of seats unreserved (otherwise they have to mark it "reservation compulsory" in timetables), so if you got on at the start of the train's journey you'd rarely have a problem.

omen666

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1685759

ticketcollector

omelette451 wrote: »

Couldn't you sit in that seat for the 'half a journey' it was available for, and thus avoid standing all the way?

In any case, train operators have to leave a certain proportion of seats unreserved (otherwise they have to mark it "reservation compulsory" in timetables), so if you got on at the start of the train's journey you'd rarely have a problem.

Yep.
Also the reservation becomes void after the first reserved station. So if they reserve from station A - D, and get on at B they've lost the reservation.