RailEasy

Ritchie_2

I'm planning a trip for my Grandfather to come up and visit us in NE Scotland. I've used RailEasy a number of times and not had any problems.

Went through the booking process, reserved seats were selected, tickets arrived, no seat reservations for a large part of the journey, below explains more:-

Sir/Madam

I booked the above tickets for return journeys between (removed)

During the booking process the website automatically selected reserved seats and as the booking is for a senior citizen I proceeded thinking that seats would be booked for the entire journey. Upon receipt of my tickets and itinerary today I find that seats are not booked on the A to E (and return) element of the journey.

Obviously with the traveller being an elderly gentleman I was concerned about the possibility of him having to stand for some, or all of the journey so I rang your customer service helpline with the intention of adding seat reservations. I was told that seat reservations were not available on that service.

Just out of curiosity I contacted National Rail Enquiries and I was offered the exact same journey, with seat reservations throughout, for the exact same price. So clearly someone is either lying or incompetent.

Obviously I rang your customer service line again, only to be told that a to get a refund on a ticket that did not meet the specification I asked for would cost me an administrative charge of £10.

This is unacceptable, I wanted seat reservations, you couldn't provide them - your mistake.

So in summary, I would like a complete refund for the entire ticket reservation of £129.25 immediately in addition I estimate the cost of calling your premium rate customer service number at £10 therefore the total refund being £139.25, I will not be paying any administrative charges. Alternatively you can send out tickets that contain seat reservations.


I expect this to be resolved quickly so I can use the funds to re-book tickets with a more competent company. Please contact me by telephone should you wish to discuss the issue (calls charged at around 5p per min from BT landlines).

Although I didnt have any issues with them previously it would seem it is their policy to charge a £10 admin fee even if they mess up your bookings, and their £1.04 per min customer service line is extortionate.

I know people will say 'train companies websites are just as cheap', well yes they can be however I usually find raileasy to be slightly cheaper on some fares.

Obviously I fired off the email above, anyone have any advice on how to proceed? Or had any dealings with them?

wealdroam

Why not go to your local station and ask them to add seat reservations.

Most train companies will do this without charge, but as you haven't told us the journey I cannot say whether this applies in your case.

Just out of curosity, can you please give an example where a ticket is available cheaper from RailEasy than from a train operating company?
I have never found one.
I note that raileasy charge a 2.5% credit card fee, or a 50p debit card fee. They also charge for postage, don't they?
There is also a £1 booking fee, but if you want to avoid that (until the end of this year), use the link in MSE's Cheap Train Tickets article.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

if he's travelling soon, over 55, and within Scotland, he could use this, or travelling from down south, can go from Carlisle or Berwick-upon-Tweed.

wealdroam

Oops... got those charges wrong earlier.

Raileasy charge £0.75 for using a debit card and a whopping 4.5% for using a credit card.

Figures from their website...

PLEASE NOTE: We charge £0.75 for debit card payments and 4.5% of the ticket price for credit card payments.

Ritchie_2

Raileasy have been in touch.

Firstly someone from their management team is sending out seat bookings. So really that issue is resolved, and also they provided a link so any future credit/debit charges could be avoided and offered to re-imburse the cost of the premium rate number if I provided a copy if my phone bill. Fair enough I think.

Then their refunds department got in touch, stating that they would gladly refund the tickets if i rebooked the journey with then but would charge a£10 admin fee and that they were not in a position to refund the cost if the calls. Also the tickets were to be sent back at my own expense.

Hopefully the manager comes up with the goods but I think this will be the last time I use raileasy because if the attitude and policies toward refunding tickets that did not meet what I needed.

Surely if I ask for reserved seats and do not get them, they have failed to provide the service I wanted and have no right to charge an admin fee?

Thanks for the advice so far

On a separate note, raileasy are aware of this thread as they sent me an email asking if I would post a positive comment should the situation be resolved.

Ritchie_2

wealdroam wrote: »

Why not go to your local station and ask them to add seat reservations.

Most train companies will do this without charge, but as you haven't told us the journey I cannot say whether this applies in your case.

Just out of curosity, can you please give an example where a ticket is available cheaper from RailEasy than from a train operating company?
I have never found one.
I note that raileasy charge a 2.5% credit card fee, or a 50p debit card fee. They also charge for postage, don't they?
There is also a £1 booking fee, but if you want to avoid

I've used them a lot for journeys in NE Scotland where usually raileasy are cheaper than Scotrails website for bookings in advance. Also our local station is not manned and I prefer to have tickets in hand rather than collecting from the machine when using Scotrails site.


Yes I could go to my station to add seats but with it being a 40 mile round trip, why should I when I booked seats on the order.

Thanks for the link!

wealdroam

Ritchie_2 wrote: »

I've used them a lot for journeys in NE Scotland where usually raileasy are cheaper than Scotrails website for bookings in advance.

Oh, I imagine they could be cheaper, just that I have not come across it before.

If you could give one example, that'd be great.

Ritchie_2 wrote: »

Surely if I ask for reserved seats and do not get them, they have failed to provide the service I wanted and have no right to charge an admin fee?

Correct.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

for future travel have a look at redspottedhanky, no fees, seat reservation, post/collect tickets, oh, and you can use Tesco clubcard vouchers to double their value.

squeaky

Hi all

I know that this one has been resolved, but there's some value in moving it across to the Transport board, so here goes.

Forum_Team wrote:

Hi, Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: I’ve asked Board Guides to move threads if they’ll receive a better response elsewhere (please see this rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board, where it should get more replies. If you have any questions about this policy please email [EMAIL='forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com']forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL]

Jeff_Bridges_hair

I severly doubt that Raileasy would ever be cheaper then buying it from a TOC.

What I bet has ahppened to you before is that you have placed the tickets in yoru basket on Raileasy then gone to check on Scotrail but the tickets have been witheld for your raileasy booking so are not showing up on your Scotrail choices as they are limited availability tickets.