Scotsman East Coast rail offer

Gloria_Steeth

adamzworld wrote: »

Hi there,

I've just received a reply from East Coast, which I've copied and pasted below:

"Thank you for your email regarding the reader offer currently in promotion.
The information given to you by our advisors is correct. You need one voucher per person in order to travel and this offer allows you to travel with a maxium of 4 people.
Unfortunatly I can see where the problems have arose and this is something we are aware of. The actual article was written by the individual paper.As the tickets are clearly stated as non - refundable I'm afraid we cannot re-inburse you for any of them and three of them will be void should you choose to travel without 4 vouchers in total which could result in you paying the standard fare.
I hope this helps clear up any questions you have."

From their reply, it would seem that you do need one voucher per passenger. I sent the email when I only had one voucher, but I did end up buying additional copies of the paper just in case, so fortunately I do now have four vouchers.

I'm glad I did get the extra copies and I hope nobody else ends up getting charged extra when their tickets get checked.

Hope this helps.



Adam

Gulp! :eek::eek::eek::eek:

Thanks for the update, Adam. I have completely misunderstood the voucher/passenger ratio and would like to apologise for taking the 1/4 stance in my previous posts.

However, since East Coast are aware of possible confusion - "Unfortunatly I can see where the problems have arose and this is something we are aware of " - then surely they should make allowances for a group travelling with only one voucher? It's just unimaginably awful to think of a group boarding the train with one voucher (as I would have done, had you not enquired about it on here) and then being stung for the full fare for the ones without vouchers. :(:( I can only hope that no-one, especially on this forum, has an encounter with a ticket inspector who does everything by the book.

Thank you again for keeping us informed. I really hope things will turn out all right for those with only one voucher.

skizz_b

Does it say four vouchers are required on the voucher itself or one voucher covers 4 people?? Regardless of what they say you should go with what's on the voucher as I'd wager very few of the people who took up the offer would take the time to send an email to East Coast checking the T&C's, and if they charge penalty fares to every person who thought it was 1 voucher for every 4 people it will be a massive PR backfire for them!

Gloria_Steeth

^^^^

Unfortunately the Mirror voucher doesn't specify how many people are covered. The newspaper itself just says to visit www.mirror.co.uk/eastcoast where it gives the impression that one voucher could be used for up to four people, but it would be difficult to prove this to a ticket inspector as it doesn't mention anything about 4 people on the actual voucher.

As East Coast are aware of this ambiguity yet would still appear to be intent on enforcing a one voucher per person rule, then yes, any ensuing bad publicity would come back and bite them. Let's hope they'll reconsider before then.