Ticket to (take me for a) ride

Why, as the cost to companies of administrating ticket sales has plummeted in recent years, has the amount charged to consumers for the process soared?

You might suppose that booking tickets yourself on a website, which then sets off an automated processing and posting system, costs companies a lot less than manning box offices and phone lines. But then of course most tickets are now sold through agencies, which are parasitical, er sorry, profit-making enterprises.

Just as we've got used to being charged 20% of the cover price for the privilege of being sold tickets to various sorts of entertainment, so now the ruse has spread to train tickets. Trainline.com - the ticketing website that somehow has managed to maintain a high profile despite its user-unfriendliness - has just announced it will be introducing fees on ticket purchases.

There will be a booking fee of £2.50: it doesn't say whether this is per ticket or per booking, but you can bet your bottom dollar it's the former - which of course makes it not a booking fee but a ticket surcharge. On top will be levied the amusingly titled 'fulfilment fee'. Fulfilling the obligation to give you the ticket once it has been bought: well thank you trainline.com, you are really spoiling us. Anyway, it's £1.00 for post and 50p for picking up at the self-service machines in stations.

This might not be so irksome if it wasn't adding insult to the injury of grievously inflated rail fares. I'm frankly fed up of train operators each time they raise fares bleating about what great value their discounted advance tickets are. It's rubbish: they are rarer than the red squirrel. And twice as elusive.

Anyway, the solution is simple: don't use trainline.com. The major train operator websites like Virgin Trains and particularly National Express do a better job but aren't, as far as I know, charging for it.

If trainline.com needs to levy these fees to prop up margins and loses its customers as a result, then maybe that's the market's way of telling it that it doesn't deserve to exist as a profit-making enterprise.

- Adrian Lowery, Assistant Editor, thisismoney.co.uk

Comments

[Charles]

Why is life so complicated when we almost need a rule book to get from A-B. everything we touch needs a password, pin number,some form of identity. Trying to get on a train at a price we can afford is a complete nightmare, probably get some call centre in India.
Thank goodness for the bus pass, better still if it covered all the UK.Its taken me 48 years and 4months of tax paying to get it. It may take a week too arrive at our destination, but its nice to know we are getting some of our tax back.

[Karin Lloyd]

I have also just discovered that they are also charging not only for using a credit card but they now even charge 50p for using a debit card. What is this charge supposed to cover? I won't be using them again.

[Katy]

I tried to book tickets too - and discovered I was going to be charged 50p for using a debit card (How the hell else are you supposed to pay - tried stuffing notes into my laptop but no go!) and 50p for driving to the station to pick them up - so £1 on top of the cost. Perhaps I should send my expenses in for the petrol, electricity used, time etc. Then I could end up standing - so guess who's going by car!

Incidentally, does this mean if I pay for my ticket with a debit card at the station, I'll be charged 50p?

[Zara Green]

I suspect that the 50p charge is a desperate attempt to claw back some revenue. Every time the local train goes past my house its empty. Less and less people are using it as a viable means of transport.