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VCTS rail tickets
I'm going to Ashford (surrey) at the weekend, according to the map for
my VCTS card I travel for free as far as Feltham, with only one more stop to get to Ashford. Can I buy a ticket from a machine at either waterloo or richmond (not decided on route next) to cover the Feltham to Ashford section? or do I need to confuse a real person in order to do that? -- Mark Varley MarkVarleyPhoto.co.uk TwistedPhotography.co.uk London, England. |
#2
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VCTS rail tickets
On 29 Jan, 00:06, MarkVarley - MVP wrote: I'm going to Ashford (surrey) at the weekend, according to the map for my VCTS card I travel for free as far as Feltham, with only one more stop to get to Ashford. Can I buy a ticket from a machine at either waterloo or richmond (not decided on route next) to cover the Feltham to Ashford section? or do I need to confuse a real person in order to do that? You need to confuse a real person to do that. They will likely never have seen a VCTS card before and might possibly be somewhat sceptical about it all - I'd think the line to take is that it is basically a Freedom Pass for injured ex-service personnel. Self-service ticket machines basically only ever offer tickets for travel from the station where they're located. Except when you order ahead online and then pick up your pre-ordered tickets as a station that offers Self Service Ticket Collection - and both Waterloo and Richmond offer this, see the list of stations where this can be done he http://www.thetrainline.com/Buy_Tick...nformation.asp Pre-ordered tickets can be picked up two hours after purchase online - you need to take both the card you used for purchasing them and also the reference code you'll be sent by email. All the online ticket sales sites offer this service, and the participating stations are all the same - the reason being is that it's actually a standardised system across the rail industry (hurrah!) which has the somewhat nonsense name of "Ticket On Departure" or TOD. Therefore if you do buy tickets online don't buy them direct from TheTrainline, as they charge silly things like booking fees and credit card surcharges - instead, use one of the train company booking sites - almost all of these are actually run by the Trainline for the train company in question (aka 'Trainline-powered'), so the interface will be the same but you won't get stung for stuff like booking fees. This is a link straight in to the South West Trains booking site: https://www.swt.trainsfares.co.uk/bu...quirements.asp Alternatively use the National Express East Coast booking system - it's quite different from the 'Trainline-powered' versions but people on uk.railway really rate it: http://www.nationalexpresseastcoast.com/ I fully admit this does all seem rather excessive for a one stop extension ticket from Feltham to Ashford, so you should probably just go and try and buy it at the Waterloo ticket office - it's a big station after all so perhaps they wouldn't be phased by a VCYS card, and indeed maybe they're already quite familiar with them. Just be prepared for them not to be! Also, the above information about buying online might be useful in the future. |
#3
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VCTS rail tickets
On 29 Jan, 02:54, Mizter T wrote: (snip) Therefore if you do buy tickets online don't buy them direct from TheTrainline, as they charge silly things like booking fees and credit card surcharges - instead, use one of the train company booking sites - almost all of these are actually run by the Trainline for the train company in question (aka 'Trainline-powered'), so the interface will be the same but you won't get stung for stuff like booking fees. This is a link straight in to the South West Trains booking site: https://www.swt.trainsfares.co.uk/bu...nts/journey_re... I think you may well end up with a 'No Cookies' error page if you follow the above link. Instead, this shorter URL should work: https://www.swt.trainsfares.co.uk/ Sorry about that. |
#4
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VCTS rail tickets
On Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:54:56 -0800 (PST), Mizter T
wrote this gibberish: On 29 Jan, 00:06, MarkVarley - MVP wrote: I'm going to Ashford (surrey) at the weekend, according to the map for my VCTS card I travel for free as far as Feltham, with only one more stop to get to Ashford. Can I buy a ticket from a machine at either waterloo or richmond (not decided on route next) to cover the Feltham to Ashford section? or do I need to confuse a real person in order to do that? You need to confuse a real person to do that. They will likely never have seen a VCTS card before and might possibly be somewhat sceptical about it all - I'd think the line to take is that it is basically a Freedom Pass for injured ex-service personnel. Self-service ticket machines basically only ever offer tickets for travel from the station where they're located. Except when you order ahead online and then pick up your pre-ordered tickets as a station that offers Self Service Ticket Collection - and both Waterloo and Richmond offer this, see the list of stations where this can be done he http://www.thetrainline.com/Buy_Tick...nformation.asp Pre-ordered tickets can be picked up two hours after purchase online - you need to take both the card you used for purchasing them and also the reference code you'll be sent by email. All the online ticket sales sites offer this service, and the participating stations are all the same - the reason being is that it's actually a standardised system across the rail industry (hurrah!) which has the somewhat nonsense name of "Ticket On Departure" or TOD. Therefore if you do buy tickets online don't buy them direct from TheTrainline, as they charge silly things like booking fees and credit card surcharges - instead, use one of the train company booking sites - almost all of these are actually run by the Trainline for the train company in question (aka 'Trainline-powered'), so the interface will be the same but you won't get stung for stuff like booking fees. This is a link straight in to the South West Trains booking site: https://www.swt.trainsfares.co.uk/bu...quirements.asp Alternatively use the National Express East Coast booking system - it's quite different from the 'Trainline-powered' versions but people on uk.railway really rate it: http://www.nationalexpresseastcoast.com/ I fully admit this does all seem rather excessive for a one stop extension ticket from Feltham to Ashford, so you should probably just go and try and buy it at the Waterloo ticket office - it's a big station after all so perhaps they wouldn't be phased by a VCYS card, and indeed maybe they're already quite familiar with them. Just be prepared for them not to be! Also, the above information about buying online might be useful in the future. Thats all good to know :-) I usually use thetrainline.com for tickets so will go elsewhere and save a few £ It looks like going via richmond (overground form hackney central) isn't an option this weekend due to engineering work so it'll be a train from waterloo instead, I'll try the human interface and see how it goes :-) thank you! I still don't know about the VCTS and travel history at the machines yet (pretty sure it was you who asked about that in a previous thread), I've been cursed with hitting stations during busy times lately. -- Mark Varley MarkVarleyPhoto.co.uk TwistedPhotography.co.uk London, England. |
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