Virgin Trains - out of pocket by £135.50 - any tips?

vigman

FARE-COP wrote: »

All good advice so far.

The responsibility to check that any ticket is valid for travel before boarding a train always lies with the traveller.

Exactly. So yesterday my daughter and friend asked the ticket office at Chichester if it would be alright to travel on an earlier train to Oxford without penalty. They were told it was fine....and then they were charged 61GBP excess on the journey"":mad::mad:

Vigman

robt_2

vigman wrote: »

Exactly. So yesterday my daughter and friend asked the ticket office at Chichester if it would be alright to travel on an earlier train to Oxford without penalty. They were told it was fine....and then they were charged 61GBP excess on the journey"":mad::mad:

Vigman

Ticket office staff have NO authority to do that. Your complaint is with those members of staff at the ticket office, and those members of staff alone.

vigman

robt wrote: »

Ticket office staff have NO authority to do that. Your complaint is with those members of staff at the ticket office, and those members of staff alone.

Many thanks, but they represent their company (in this case Southern Railways, I believe?) and there are many companies found guilty of offences because of the (unauthorised) actions of their staff.

Vigman

robt_2

vigman wrote: »

Many thanks, but they represent their company (in this case Southern Railways, I believe?) and there are many companies found guilty of offences because of the (unauthorised) actions of their staff.

Vigman

I agree - but what I'm saying that it isn't the persons fault who charged them for new tickets - either the guard on the train or staff at the destination station I would imagine.

And yes, it is Southern who manage Chichester.

vigman

Thanks, Robt. I do understand what you are saying.

It is just a shame that on a half empty train the ticket collector couldn't have taken pity on two young girls who had taken the trouble to get some advice before travelling, especially as my daughter has a railcard (which she was at least sensible enough to use on the excess charge).

We will be contacter SR about the Chichester incorrect and expensive advice though.

Vigman

I have just heard from 'a rail employee' that SR will never charge excess and Great Western always will........but don't rely on that!!

dzug1

vigman wrote: »

Many thanks, but they represent their company (in this case Southern Railways, I believe?) and there are many companies found guilty of offences because of the (unauthorised) actions of their staff.

Vigman

Well yes they represent Southern

But Southern don't run from Chichester to Oxford - just a short section at the start of the journey. They should still have known the restrictions though.

It's always possible they were asked the wrong question and answered it correctly......

Lum

I managed to duplicate the error on my N900, though I did not attempt to go ahead and book it.

If you leave the page for a couple of minutes then the little radio button next to the 18:30 return train will eventually disappear, but in that time I'd probably be well on the way to the next stage of the booking process.

I guess the problem may be to do with the fact that the N900 browser, MicroB, uses the Gecko rendering engine (same one as Firefox) which isn't the best performer when it comes to Javascript, wheras the other two major smartphone platforms (iOS and Android) use the Webkit rendering engine (same as in Konqueror, Safari and Google Chrome).

National rail probably didn't test their website in this environment, if they tested it at all.

OP: I believe there is a build of Google Chrome available for the N900, called "Chromium" can you reproduce the error with that?

vigman

dzug1 wrote: »

Well yes they represent Southern

But Southern don't run from Chichester to Oxford - just a short section at the start of the journey. They should still have known the restrictions though.

It's always possible they were asked the wrong question and answered it correctly......

The question they were asked was "We have tickets booked for a later train from here to Oxford. Would we be charged if we caught an earlier one?" The reply was "No, you'll be alright"

Obviously the SR man did not consider the FGW response, but the girls took this as an official OK to travel on their current tickets.

As it happens, last week my wife travelled from Southampton to Oxford on an off peak 30 day return. I mistakenly thought she could travel at any off peak time in that period, and had booked a specific date out. She travelled on a later date but the ticket inspector not only let her off an additional charge, but got out of the train at Oxford to explain to the staff on the gate! Shows it can be done for genuine misunderstandings!

Vigman

PS My daughter had also explained (to both SR and FGW staff) that she was a type 1 diabetic and didn't feel well enough at the time to wait the 6 hours for her later train.

yorkie2

earledawes wrote: »

I genuinely thought the 18:30 was an off peak train from the automatical timetable/fare finder I had seen on nationalrail.co.uk and so was not trying to cheat anyone out of money. It really did not make a jot of difference to me if I had got the next train (which was offpeak) or not. it?

There is no such thing as an "off peak train" as such, it is not the train which bars off peak tickets, indeed some off peak tickets are valid on the 1830.

It is the ticket that restricts the trains you can get.

From Avantix Traveller NFM06 (available here)

the restriction for a ST ANNES ON SEA [SAS] to London Terminals ticket is as follows:-

Restriction : 2C
FOR TRAVEL TO OR VIA:
London Terminals, Milton
Keynes, Watford, Stevenage,
Reading, Kensington Olympia,
Bedford, Luton and Luton
Airport Parkway.

These restrictions apply
Monday to Friday. By any train
on other days.

If travel is NOT to/via the
stations listed below or
Peterborough, see restriction
code 2V.

OUTWARD TRAVEL
You may travel on any train
that is scheduled to ARRIVE as
shown below:

RETURN TRAVEL
You may travel on any train
that is scheduled to DEPART_as
shown below:

DEPART: LONDON EUSTON
Between 0926 & 1500 (inc.) and
at or after 1845.

ARRIVE: LONDON EUSTON
Before 0720 or at or after
1129.

chuckley wrote: »

I thought Virgins off peak started again at 18.30?! or has this changed again?!

FUNNY thing is though with my railcard ticket station staff say Virgin's PEAK is again between 15.00 and 18.30 even with the railcard so wont be valid. However i've NEVER had problems travelling between those times on an 'off peak rtn'.

Virgin don't have an "off peak" as such, tickets have restrictions. Virgin apply different restrictions to different tickets. Each Off Peak ticket has a restriction code associated with it. Some tickets have a restriction code that allows travel from Euston at 1830.

National Rail (the public-facing name for ATOC, the Association of Train Operating Companies) claim that this system is "simple". Every regular traveller knows that it is anything but simple. Virgin are members of ATOC.

Until someone takes these dodgy railway companies to court, they will continue to rip us all off!:(

dzug1

vigman wrote: »

The question they were asked was "We have tickets booked for a later train from here to Oxford. Would we be charged if we caught an earlier one?" The reply was "No, you'll be alright"

Obviously the SR man did not consider the FGW response, but the girls took this as an official OK to travel on their current tickets.

.

The staff should have asked 'what sort of ticket' before replying then.

Not sure where FGW comes into it - it would have been a Cross Country train where the extra was paid surely?

Still worth following up I would have thought.