thetrainline.com - problems?

moonrakerz

Ponkle22 wrote: »

Can I stick my head above the parapet and say I booked tickets in advance for a long journey with trainline and I got it loads cheaper than anywhere else, plus I paid an extra £5.00 to go first class all the way. I did price compare before I booked.

I was delighted with my purchase, but have only used this service the once.

Another reason for not using trainline is that any offers that the Train Operating
Companies may have available do not appear on the trainline website.

Sammy85_2

I used to use trainline, but now use Crosscountry trains website. Same prices and no booking fees.

cottoner

In September we booked and paid in advance for travel outwards 10th December 2010, and return left open for a month max. We used the trainline.com because the google search simply defaults to it at the top.
THEY CANCELLED THE TRAINS ABOVE EDINBURGH BECAUSE OF THE SNOW, and a load of stations and train routes were blocked, not running across the country at the same time.
Heathrow closed but re-opened later in the month of November/December and we were monitoring daily online, and the tv, frightened of losing our 4-day in London and week in ROME. All booked, paid for in GBP to companies operating legally in Britain - in advance.
Some of it was non-exchange or cancel policy, but cheaper because of it.
Will never buy cheaper again!!
No matter what the *lure* they use.
Pay full whack and get "fully flexible" terms on everything to do with travel, hotels, flights, trains et al.
Lessons have been learned....
So, today (well actually yesterday now as it is 02.23am writing this) we get a phone call.
Mid-way through an afternoon movie, we tutted and tsked answering the phone as you do.
Retirement is so boring.
We want to pass on our good fortune to all of you suffering under Pontious Trainline and the Demon Gods who run it, hiding behind call centres in India.

PASSENGER FOCUS (google it) have got all our money back, 7 weeks of fighting later, including our Admin charges. The tickets *miraculously re-appeared today* quote the lady who prefers not to be named (I asked her permission first)
I actually phoned SCOTRAIL in Edinburgh in January as Trainline are their agents, selling their tickets, for their trains.
The woman there was most understanding and put me onto Passenger Focus immediately.
She told me to "come direct to them in future, and arrange to collect the tickets from the machine in the Station, when we are due to travel" That way, she said, "we can let you know NOT TO TRAVEL and REFUND immediately - sparing us the hardship financially, and the stress of going out and coming back if the trains are cancelled. We have over 1.5 hours and two buses to get to a train, from our rural, coastal, isolated, idyllic, crime-free but boring (no pub for 4 miles) spot on the shore of the North Sea and it's incestant winds.

So, we are watching the bank account online with bated breaths.
Will they? Won't they?
She says they have done so already, yesterday - and it will take " a few days to show"
Lloyds TSB will hang onto it as long as they can, legally - so it will be more likely next week.
But hey!
We are getting it all back.
Finally.
On the day we should have been travelling by buses and trains to London, we had to go to the Airport instead. Aberdeen and Heathrow were operating a restricted schedule, but were flying between the two, and hotels and shows were paid for and non-refundable. So we paid out £640 for domestic flights, out 10th and back on the 19th.
Guess what?
BA cancelled the flight from ROME to HEATHROW on the 19th.
Thank god the trainline was cancelled on the 7th December. We'd never have gotten the cash back.
We had to find another hotel, having checked out and taken the complimentary transfer to Fumincino as organised to find the flights cancelled, to the UK, and onwards to Aberdeen.
Taxi was paid to collect us off that flight - at just before midnight 19th.
Mobile phone would not work in Rome.
Nor in Heathrow.
Only when we finally got to Heathrow 20th and a hotel close to it, did it work long enough to call home to son and taxi driver.
So we finally made it home midnight 23rd December.
Not the 19th.
BA took 5 weeks to pay us the legally authorised expenses, but they did give us it all back.
Hotels, transfers and food and drink whilst we were stranded in Rome and in Heathrow.
Only the Trainline.com told us the tickets had arrived and the claim was being "accellerated", then another day, they were never received; then they were on their way to a different location to be dealt with; and then again, never received.
So as I said above, we got the Scotrail involved, and finally were transferred to Passenger Focus who have achieved the incredible, unbelievable aforementioned FULL REFUND....

Never again taking a "winter holiday" no matter what the Doctor Orders!
Nearly killed us.
Too old for this rubbish.
Advice to anyone with such a problem - Passenger Focus deal with trains, planes and can and do HELP but they do not promise anything. It just worked out right for us in the end.
Thanks to a wonderful, understanding, compassionate and CARING lady.
You know who you are "shyboots T".
x grateful Irate Travellers