thetrainline.com

pinkshoes

I bought tickets last year, which were free to pick up from the station, and didn't charge me to use my debit card when buying online.

Just bought some more online (£12 singles instead of £94 saver return! - although I would have driven instead of paying £94), and this time they wanted 50p for me to pick them up from the machine at the station (or £1 for first class, even though 1st class is 32p!), and 50p charge to use my debit card, or £2.50 charge to use a credit card!

So not only do they put ticket prices up 10% (or more), they also try and screw customers out of money in other ways too!!

cheeky!

Ah well, at least I got my cheap tickets.

lamb7994

Next time try first great western website to but tickets they are run by trainline but as far as i know when i use them they don't charge to book tickets but charge to use credit card.

James

C_Ronaldo

OP so did you buy the tickets then, i dont see the problem, the costs were stated, the credit card fee is becuase the company gets charged for tickets bought using a credit card(im sure this is right) hence the fee

Blacksheep1979

yes it may be 32p for a first class stamp but do you expect the stamp to magically attatch itself to the tickets and get posted? No, they get put in an envelope and posted - this all costs money, maybe not the full £1 but probably not far short.

Do you also think the system that processes and stores your details for when you want to collect at the station was given to them?

JasonLVC

What's with the hostilities?. After all, this is a vent thread.

The Trainline.com has arbitarily introduced charges for something which was free previously and so could be seen as profiteering, especially as all these 'credit card fees' are already factored into their turnover forecasts.

More so, since a web based site designed to purchase tickets can ONLY accept credit card/debit card purchases and to then ask for additional fees is naughty - in the same way airlines have now been forced to give a proper price instead of headline fares which then triple once you add purchase fees or have the termerity to want to check in at the airport. I can't buy train tickets online using cash so the fees should be factored in (as they were obviously before, before they introduced these 'extra' fees).

The postage aspects is fine, but these are all automated - no-one actually licks stamps and folds anymore (all franked and envelope sized tickets) and again, when purchasing a ticket online - to be charged whichever way you choose to receive your ticket is again, a cheeky rip-off and the costs of the web infrastructure are minimal compared to the voerheads of main line stattions, staffing, etc.

One final note - seeing as the government subsidise ALL the railway companies to several billion a year, then yes, the equipment is given to these companies for free for them to then charge customers to use.

pinkshoes

C_Ronaldo wrote: »

OP so did you buy the tickets then, i dont see the problem,

Pinkshoes wrote: »

Ah well, at least I got my cheap tickets.

???? :rolleyes:

C_Ronaldo wrote: »

the costs were stated, the credit card fee is becuase the company gets charged for tickets bought using a credit card(im sure this is right) hence the fee

A charge for credit cards is fair enough, because it does cost to process a credit card payment, but I paid by DEBIT card, which doesn't cost them anything... so why the 50p charge?? It's not like I had any other option to pay either!

And the whole idea of picking the tickets up from a machine is that it doesn't involve humans, so why the 50p charge when it was free a month or so ago?!?!

I think you missed the point. My point was that they've already put ticket prices up 5x more than "inflation", and now they're adding cheeky & unneccessary extra charges to bump prices up even more.

Will have a look at the FGW website next time, although I think they might have also added these charges too.

Surfbabe

DS just found the same when he went to book his tickets back to Uni. He used First Great Western instead, tickets were posted 1st class to home at no extra charge. He has also just booked tickets to go to London next week from Swansea and is picking them up at the station at no extra charge. Moral - don;t use trainline.

Voyager2002

Remember that Trainline is a company that sells tickets, and is not responsible for the actual fares.

However, since they do not offer anything that is not available from the train operating companies I see no reason to use them, since they charge these fees.

I remember when they started, and would offer a two pound discount on the face value of the tickets: none of this nonsense about charging for delivery and for taking payment.

jackiechan_3

I was about to buy some tickets on thetrainline.com but then had a wander over to the firstgreatwestern site. Happier for it too. It has what looks to be the same ticket search engine (i..e the journeys don't just have to be ones with fgw trains) but insurance isn't selected by default. No £1 charge for posting tickets and no £2.50 charge for credit cards.

Not a fan of FGW at all as their customer service has been woeful in my experience, but at least when it comes to buying tickets it's the lesser of two evils.

bap98189

pinkshoes wrote: »

???? :rolleyes:
A charge for credit cards is fair enough, because it does cost to process a credit card payment, but I paid by DEBIT card, which doesn't cost them anything... so why the 50p charge?? It's not like I had any other option to pay either!

That is not true. It's a myth that accepting a debit card transaction costs a business nothing. There will be a charge from their payment processor - the company that verifies and authorises the transaction. There will also be bank charges incurred.

chuckley

u marked the T&C's in order to book the tickets then complain??? yet were happy for them to charge the 50p?

LMAO. there were other options. like your local train station, other booking webites, e.t.c