The Anonymous Widower

East Coast Tickets Are Not Exchangeable For A Sensible Fee

For my Day 1 trip from Accrington to London, I booked an advance ticket on the 10:05 from Leeds to London, that arrived at 12:30.  The ticket cost me £26.45.

But at the time I booked, I hadn’t thought that I could fit in the Aston Villa part of the trip.

So I found that if I took an earlier train from Leeds, it would give me more time. But no matter, it said that I could exchange the ticket for a fee.

So I looked it up on the web this morning and found that there were tickets for earlier trains still available, albeit at a higher price.  There were also Super Off Peak tickets available at £28.90, which is probably what I should have bought in the first place.

So I went to Kings Cross and found out that to exchange the ticket for a named train would cost me a fee of forty-one pounds or so. I’ve changed advance tickets in the past and I think I got charged five or ten pounds or so.  That would have been reasonable, but not ideal, as in fact, I’m not sure which train I want to take. As it’s a Saturday, I have a feeling that a Super Off Peak ticket allows me to travel on most, if not all trains.

So I left, after realising I had a nice story for my blog and of course, I still had a valid ticket on the 10:05, even if it is a bit tight to get to Aston Villa.

At home, I found that the £28.90 ticket was still there, so to see if I could get it cheaper, I tried the TrainLine.  But that wanted £40.90. I don’t pay booking fees to anybody, so they can go and find some other mugs.

So I went back to East Coast and eventually bought the ticket at £28.90.

It’ll be interesting to see what price, I could pay for a walk-up ticket at Leeds on Saturday.

To return to the title of this page.  I don’t consider, a forty pound plus fee acceptable, when I can buy a fully flexible ticket for about two-thirds of the sum.

This trip is starting to get interesting.  Perhaps I should follow Tony Hawks lead and travel with a fridge. The problem is that I’ve had enough medical problems in the past few years, I don’t want another caused by humping a fridge.

September 26, 2011 - Posted by AnonW | Sport, Transport/Travel | 92 Clubs, 92CCBB, Leeds, Trains