Northern ticket office, CrossCountry rail travel voucher not being accepted

[py_megapixel]

Yesterday I tried to purchase some tickets using rail travel vouchers, issued in a CrossCountry delay repay claim, from my local ticket office (Northern-operated). These vouchers are well within their period of validity (valid for 12 months, issued just over 1 month ago). The member of staff behind the ticket counter was excellent but his computer simply refused to accept the vouchers (he even showed me the message on the screen which said they were apparently not valid).

There is another station in walking distance but it's also run by Northern so, I'm told, will use the same computer system. The ticket office opening hours are also quite limited there. I can't easily get to another TOC's ticket office from where I live.

Any ideas what I should do? Would it be worth emailing Northern?

 

[Haywain]

Any ideas what I should do? Would it be worth emailing Northern

I think I would start by contacting Cross-country, as it would appear that they are issuing vouchers which are incorrectly coded.

 

[py_megapixel]

I think I would start by contacting Cross-country, as it would appear that they are issuing vouchers which are incorrectly coded.

I have just attempted to phone CrossCountry, whose website claims their Customer Relations line is open from 8:00 to 16:00 on Sundays, and received an automated message telling me that their offices are closed and I should contact National Rail Enquiries for travel information. I highly doubt NRE will be able to help me with this...

If I have time later I'll write them an email, but in the past I have found their email support to be hopelessly slow.

 

[Llandudno]

I have just attempted to phone CrossCountry, whose website claims their Customer Relations line is open from 8:00 to 16:00 on Sundays, and received an automated message telling me that their offices are closed and I should contact National Rail Enquiries for travel information. I highly doubt NRE will be able to help me with this...

If I have time later I'll write them an email, but in the past I have found their email support to be hopelessly slow.

Could try Twitter?

 

[Mcr Warrior]

There was a similar thread a year and a bit ago. Not quite sure whether the issue was dodgily encoded RTVs or ticket office incompetence. See link...

Rail vouchers not accepted at ticket office.

Infrequent traveller but had a bit of bad luck with the trains recently so I’ve ended up with £60 in rail vouchers from delay repay claims. Today at Glasgow Queen Street I attempted to redeem these for a couple of single tickets from Glasgow to Edinburgh for me and my better half. After much...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[ABB125]

I've had a similar problem with a GWR-issued voucher at a WMR station. After nearly two months of waiting, my complaint has been processed by GWR, and hopefully I'll be issued with a replacement voucher soon.

 

[Starmill]

You could pay for your tickets in cash if needed, then send CrossCountry the voucher and the tickets asking them to issue you with a cheque instead as they were refused. You could try asking for a bank transfer or handling it by email but I don't know how far you'll get.

 

[py_megapixel]

Hi everyone,

It took me a while to get around to sending XC an email, not least as I had the vouchers buried under some other paper and couldn't find them, and also because I wanted to try phoning them a couple more times as that might be a quicker way. However I did send an email last week. I have an automated case acknowledgement email but still nothing back from an actual human.

In the first instance I've just reported that the vouchers were rejected and asked for them to be re-issued. We'll see what they come back with.

 

[py_megapixel]

I think I would start by contacting Cross-country, as it would appear that they are issuing vouchers which are incorrectly coded.

I have done as you suggested, and they have now replied.

Apparently they do not re-issue RTVs which have expired (this is of no relevance, as the vouchers in question have not expired).

I am also told that the only reason the station would refuse RTVs is if it they have expired, so this must be what happened. This part, in particular, seems patronising and reeks of the "customer is always wrong" attitude the railway has become notorious for - as the vouchers are clearly marked with how long they are valid for and from what date, so even if I was wrong, it would be XC's fault for printing the wrong date on the voucher!

As I am sure people on here will understand, this is extremely unsatisfactory, so I will respond pointing out that they have not expired.
Would it be wise to provide the 12-digit reference number from the vouchers in my response, or not?

 

[voyagerdude220]

Have you tried contacting Northern to see if they can look into why their Ticket Office Machine won't accept your perfectly valid voucher? I wonder if the member of staff made an error when trying to key the voucher details in manually.

 

[py_megapixel]

Have you tried contacting Northern to see if they can look into why their Ticket Office Machine won't accept your perfectly valid voucher?

No, but I'll do so later. The problem is that I don't know that the vouchers are "perfectly valid" as CrossCountry may have botched issuing them.

I wonder if the member of staff made an error when trying to key the voucher details in manually.

I don't think so, as they tried both vouchers (there are 2 of them) several times, both manually and with the barcode scanner.

 

[robbeech]

I would respond to them politely explaining that they’re talking utter drivel and you now consider that they have failed to provide you with the compensation you were entitled to and will now seek to obtain this payment through whatever means necessary to settle the matter.

If it were me I would have no issues in mentioning to them in your response that you find their reply patronising but you may not wish to do this.

Your reply may wish to brush over such terminology as legal proceedings and the rail ombudsman.


The truth of the matter is, there’s as much chance of it being the Northern staff member who can’t use the technology they have. It’s hit and miss at some Northern ticket offices. My local one always has to go through a strange manual procedure and type the numbers in, and then some of them randomly don’t work the first time but do a couple of weeks later. All that aside it’s no excuse for Cross Country to say this, although like you I’m not surprised as this is the attitude of the railway nowadays.

 

[DelayRepay]

As I am sure people on here will understand, this is extremely unsatisfactory, so I will respond pointing out that they have not expired.
Would it be wise to provide the 12-digit reference number from the vouchers in my response, or not?

If it were me, I would take a photograph of the vouchers and attach them.

 

[py_megapixel]

I have replied to CrossCountry, trying to remain as polite as possible while still being firm, explaining clearly that the vouchers have not expired and reaffirming that I want them to reissue them. As suggested, I have included a picture of the vouchers.

I have also written to Northern about this experience, including the same picture, as they operate the station which rejected the voucher.