Trainline Confusion

gandalftheking

Hi all,

I've booked a few sleeper trains to Paddington (from Redruth) in the past but usually at short notice, so never quibbled at the price.

For a November booking, I can see 2 x cheaper singles totalling £46 return (yay!), but when I click forward to add the sleeper option (£70) it's not available. I can only reserve a seat...

The only time the sleeper option becomes available is if I select an off peak return at £110 (over double the 2 singles), THEN the option to add a sleeper berth at £70 is there!

Why do I need to buy a more expensive base ticket just to be able to get the sleeper option?

Thanks!

martindow

Have you tried booking with gwr.com who run the trains and have no booking fee? Never use trainline who charge extra.

Looking at gwr for 8 November there are £23 singles and sleeper fares from £63.70. Some of the fares show limited availability. Maybe the return fare you have seen is a seat out and a berth for the return?

gandalftheking

No its out on the sleeper and back from paddington a couple weeks later - odd that the sleeper berth isnt listed as an option to add to the cheaper tickets though. I'll try gwr thanks and report back

gandalftheking

UPDATE: looks like the same thing on gwr.com. I can book the return at £46 no problem, but no way to add sleeper that I can see to that level of fare

EDIT: I went for off-peak single up, then cheap ticket back. That gave me the sleeper option to add which it would not do when trying to get a cheaper ticket up. All came out at £140ish vs £180 Trainline

martindow

gandalftheking wrote: »

UPDATE: looks like the same thing on gwr.com. I can book the return at £46 no problem, but no way to add sleeper that I can see to that level of fare

Are you sure that's how it works? I assumed that it was quoting prices available - £23 is a fare where you get a seat, the other fares gave you a berth in a sleeping car. They didn't look like supplements on top of the seat fare to me.

Are you anywhere near a station with a staffed booking office? You could discuss it with a human who possibly can see more details and knows how it works.

elverson

Perhaps ask on https://www.railforums.co.uk.

djpailo

As a word of advice for the future, you should never ever use Trainline. It charges extra booking fees. Just use the train operating companies (most don't charge extra) and often many will have offers which may be applicable to you.

ic

You can only buy the sleeper supplement on standard fares, not advance fares. You should pick one of the advance fares that includes the sleeper option.

nickcc

Just booked a return for my Wife who'll be travelling on her own. Great price as a week before travel but what a right pain getting the ticket. Her departure station doesn't have a self service ticket machine so either she travels part way on a printout of the confirmation email then obtains a self service ticket at her change of station or we have a 30 mile journey to a local station that has a self service ticket machine.

I expect regular rail travellers would have no problem but my Wife last used rail travel nearly fifty years ago so presenting her with this problem will certainly cause her much distress. Tried to get the ticket posted but without success so 30 mile trip to not so local station with self service ticket machine seems our only course of action.

p00hsticks

nickcc wrote: »

Just booked a return for my Wife who'll be travelling on her own. Great price as a week before travel but what a right pain getting the ticket. Her departure station doesn't have a self service ticket machine so either she travels part way on a printout of the confirmation email then obtains a self service ticket at her change of station or we have a 30 mile journey to a local station that has a self service ticket machine.

I expect regular rail travellers would have no problem but my Wife last used rail travel nearly fifty years ago so presenting her with this problem will certainly cause her much distress. Tried to get the ticket posted but without success so 30 mile trip to not so local station with self service ticket machine seems our only course of action.

In future, don't use trainline - they charge a booking fee which many individual train operating companies (e.g Virgin) don't. If your wife has a smartphone / e-mail address and printer then there may well have been an opportunity to get an e-ticket that she could either show on her phone or print off at home.

I'm not sure a print out of the confirmation e-mail would be acceptable to a ticket inspector,

nickcc

There was no facility for printing the ticket when I booked it. Trainline advised me, as my local station Redruth doesn't have a self service ticket machine, to print off the confirmation email and then when my Wife arrives at her change of train, Reading, to obtain the ticket there. Doesn't help as one train is GWR and the other Crosscountry. As for the booking fee, Crosscountry wanted £240 return for the same journey that Trainline are charging £120 for so a booking fee of less than £2 doesn't cause me a problem.