Cannot pick up my train ticket!

lammy82

notakid wrote: »

Im very surprised to hear that. I work at Bham new street at the fast ticket machines and it is a common problem that people with different credit cards are unable to collect their tickets even if they have the reference. I know as well that the the ticket staff behind the counter will refuse to release the tickets if the credit card used in the booking is not available.
Maybe its a gitch in the booking with redspottedhanky but I have dealt with many disappointed and angry travellers who have had to buy new tickets on the day;

Yikes! I guess I've been lucky then! Maybe it is just RedSpottedHanky? I'll try this again the next time I pick up tickets (it's been a good few months since I have collected any). I should point out, I've never actually relied on being able to do this, it was more of an experiment to see what would happen

Bradfield

notakid wrote: »

Im very surprised to hear that. I work at Bham new street at the fast ticket machines and it is a common problem that people with different credit cards are unable to collect their tickets even if they have the reference. I know as well that the the ticket staff behind the counter will refuse to release the tickets if the credit card used in the booking is not available.
Maybe its a gitch in the booking with redspottedhanky but I have dealt with many disappointed and angry travellers who have had to buy new tickets on the day;

Sounds like a glitch to me. A couple of weeks ago I collected my tickets (booked with Arriva) from the departure station ticket office and was surprised when I was just asked to insert my credit card in his machine (the one I had used to book the tickets online). I was not asked for a reference Number. It was clear to me that the machine scanned my card and used the card details only to authenticate and issue the tickets.

jimjiber

Thanks a million for all the help!

I am going to get my mate to try picking them up from a station local to him. Much better than posting his debit card.

Thanks again. I will report back when this is resolved.

jimjiber

My mate just picked the tickets up from his local station and will post them to me tomorrow - hurrah! Thanks for all the advice.

macman

Strange. I collected some tickets this week using this method and inadvertantly put the wrong credit card in the machine for verification. I got a 'wrong card used' message and then had to repeat the process with the correct one in order to print the tickets..

tripled

About two weeks ago I picked up tickets booked through Red Spotted Hanky at a different station and using a different bank card, from an Arriva machine.

cookie365

Right, I'm heading up to Leeds in a couple of weeks.

I'm going to collect the tickets from the machine using a colleague's work ID card. When I get to the hotel I'm going to use my credit card in the slot by the door that turns the lights on. When I get back home there's bound to be some missed post to collect, so I'll 'borrow' the hotel door key card and use that as ID at the post office.

I reckon 75%-80% chance of a hat trick

wealdroam

tripled wrote: »

About two weeks ago I picked up tickets booked through Red Spotted Hanky at a different station and using a different bank card, from an Arriva machine.

If you paid using a RSH voucher, then yes any card with a magnetic stripe can be used.

lammy82

Once again, on Thursday this week I collected my tickets, bought using my credit card through RedSpottedHanky, from a machine at Birmingham New Street, using my Cineworld card to pick them up.

For those that have had machines insisting on them using the card used to purchase the tickets, which website did you book the tickets through?

martindow

Ticket machines vary in design and age. Maybe more recent ones have software that insists on the card being the same as the one used for payment. Older machines possibly rely on the booking reference and don't check the card properly.

Another thought - if you book on, say, the Southern site and then pick up the tickets from a machine at, say, a First GW station, would First have access to Southern's systems to get the card details?