Two Together Railcard discount not applied

[Par]

Just bought two Advances for Manchester to London on June 3rd departing at 7.15 direct from Avanti. At the planning stage I applied the Two Together Railcard and went through with the purchase (at 53.40) but afterwards discovered that the Railcard discount had not been applied. I re-checked to see that if hadn't applied the Railcard discount, but no I hadn't done it wrong, however it still wouldn’t apply the discount.

The Trainline will happily sell me the ticket for correct price of £35.20.

What are my options here to get Avanti to refund the difference?

Any help appreciated.

 

[jfollows]

It helps to explain that Friday 3 June is a public holiday ("Platinum Jubilee bank holiday“) and so, presumably, the discount isn't being applied because ordinarily it's not valid for use before 9:30am on a Friday.
How about https://www.railhelp.co.uk/avantiwestcoast/make-a-complaint/website/ticket-purchase "Make a complaint about buy tickets"?

 

[Haywain]

What are my options here to get Avanti to refund the difference?

Easiest option would be to refund it under Book with Confidence and buy elsewhere, but that means having vouchers with Avanti for use at another time.

 

[Par]

It helps to explain that Friday 3 June is a public holiday ("Plainum Jubilee bank holiday) and so, presumably, the discount isn't being applied because ordinarily it's not valid for use before 9:30am on a Friday.
How about https://www.railhelp.co.uk/avantiwestcoast/make-a-complaint/website/ticket-purchase "Make a complaint about buy tickets"?

Thanks - I have submitted a complaint using that form.

For the forum info I have attached an image of a second 'dummy' booking I attempted that still fails to apply the appropriate discount and one where it can be seen that the Trainline will sell me the ticket.

 

[Haywain]

There seems to be a problem in the industry data over these public holidays (2nd/3rd June) as there is a lack of consistency with how railcard discounts are applied.

 

[jfollows]

Terms and conditions at https://www.twotogether-railcard.co.uk/help/terms-conditions/ state

4.5. Discounted tickets are not valid for travel between 04:30 – 09:29 hours, Monday to Friday, except on Public Holidays.

and I think that Bank Holidays are a subset of Public Holidays (in that they're public holidays defined in statute) and Friday 3 June is a Bank Holiday, so I don't think there's an issue that the railcard discount should be applied on 3 June for travel before 09:30.

EDIT But my interpretation might not be shared by all the people selling rail tickets, and apparently not by Avanti, by design or by mistake.
Christmas Day is a public holiday but not a bank holiday in England and Wales, apparently. Something new to have learned today for me! (https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06170/SN06170.pdf)

 

[_toommm_]

I saw something last night on Avanti’s Twitter about this issue (it may have been yourself tweeting to be fair). If not, they said they were going to pass it onto their backend team to add it to their list of bank holidays, as it seems some other retailers are applying the discount correctly.

 

[Par]

Easiest option would be to refund it under Book with Confidence and buy elsewhere, but that means having vouchers with Avanti for use at another time.

I have tried other retailers, both LNER and TPE will both sell me the correctly discounted tickets and I'm happy to purchase there and I would be prepared to accept vouchers for future use from Avanti, however Avanti are not allowing the facility to refund either through the website, where the only options are Change Date / Time, nor through the APP which simply advises that the tickets are non-refundable. This is completely at variance with their stated "Book With Confidence" pledge, that states Advances can be exchanges for vouchers up until 31st March (I'm assuming that is the booking date and not date of travel)?

What a state of affairs when the operator running the service fails to sell the correct tickets and yet plenty of others who never go near the WCML will!

Any other ideas anyone, or it is just a case of waiting to see if they respond the complaint submitted through the link kindly provided up-thread? I had an automated response saying that it could take up to 4 weeks to receive a reply.

I don't have Twitter BTW.

Thanks

 

[Haywain]

Avanti are not allowing the facility to refund either through the website, where the only options are Change Date / Time, nor through the APP which simply advises that the tickets are non-refundable.

Details on this page - Avanti Book with Confidence - although they don't, perhaps, make it easy to find.

Advances can be exchanges for vouchers up until 31st March (I'm assuming that is the booking date and not date of travel)?

It's for bookings made prior to that date, but the scheme ends on 31st March regardless of booking or travel date.

 

[jfollows]

03455280253 is their customer service phone number I think

 

[Par]

Details on this page - Avanti Book with Confidence - although they don't, perhaps, make it easy to find.


It's for bookings made prior to that date, but the scheme ends on 31st March regardless of booking or travel date.

I've read and re-read the 'Book with Confidence' page on the website, and followed the instructions provided for a Voucher refund, yet nowhere on either the App or Website is is it allowing me to refund the ticket. I have tried every link or button I can find!

 

[jfollows]

I read it as saying you have to complete a form in order to get a refund for an Advance ticket (https://www.avantiwestcoast.co.uk/help-and-support/refund-journey):


So you can wait up to 28 days to get a full refund in vouchers, or you can wait up to 28 days for them to respond to your earlier complaint and - hopefully - refund you the excess you paid at that time. Or you can call them and be on hold for 28 minutes or .......

 

[Par]

I read it as saying you have to complete a form in order to get a refund for an Advance ticket (https://www.avantiwestcoast.co.uk/help-and-support/refund-journey):
View attachment 111922

So you can wait up to 28 days to get a full refund in vouchers, or you can wait up to 28 days for them to respond to your earlier complaint and - hopefully - refund you the excess you paid at that time. Or you can call them and be on hold for 28 minutes or .......

Thanks for all you help.

At this stage I'm probably going to see how the complaint pans out.

I tried the phone number, however it's simply too long for me to wait right now, plus I have little confidence that I would get resolution anyway (this based on general customer service support lines from other businesses not Avanti, so I might be doing them a disservice there).

I'd go go with the refund if I could find a way of doing it instantly via Website or App (and avoid using the form) because the 28 days that might follow using the form would place any vouchers received into a 'suspension' because I wouldn't then be using them for quite some time, thus detracting from their usefulness.

 

[jfollows]

In your place I'd be doing the same as you've done, for what it's worth! With luck you'll get a response sooner than 28 days, get some money back, and in the meantime your ticket is booked.

 

[Par]

OK an update. Spoke with Avanti who acknowledged the problem and have now issued a same day cash refund.

Tickets now successfully re-booked with LNER.

 

[jfollows]

I’m glad you sorted this out. I looked and found similar problems reported on Twitter yesterday.

 

[robbeech]

Good news that’s it’s sorted, it’s a shame that we see constant issues with this operator retailer though.

 

[Par]

A footnote to this. Today I received a reply to the complaint I submitted as suggested up-thread by jfollows. I had forgotten all about it to be honest having successfully cancelled and re-booked elsewhere.

The reply itself is pretty lamentable in that it only asking for my booking reference (something that was already supplied), however this isn’t the point, what this reply did do was prompt me to double check that Avanti has corrected the original issue with their App / website (something they promised to do), so I tried a new “dummy” booking.

Lo and behold, three weeks on, the problem persists, I’m still being offered undiscounted tickets.

I wonder how many others have been unwittingly overcharged in the meantim?

Should there be some sanction on Avanti here, because having been made aware of the issue but failing to correct it, might be considered as sharp practice?

 

[jfollows]

A footnote to this. Today I received a reply to the complaint I submitted as suggested up-thread by jfollows. I had forgotten all about it to be honest having successfully cancelled and re-booked elsewhere.

Thank you for the feedback, not least because many don't bother, and although many of us are glad to give advice to the best of our ability we're never sure how good that advice is.
I can't say I'm surprised either, my general experience has been that anything other than simple issues are too complicated for the people responding to understand, but it's still the right thing to do. Maybe one day Avanti will look into the volume of complaints and work out why. However I doubt it, they seem to be happy to try and fob people off without understanding the problem and therefore continue down the same line - I was never impressed with Virgin but I'm decidedly unimpressed with Avanti.

I've got my second post-Covid trip with them next week. The first one they rescheduled my train but didn't see why it was a problem with not telling me. I'm a reluctant convert to Standard Premium because First Class is overpriced and nothing to write home about ......

 

[robbeech]

Should there be sanctions? Well, if they were still an entirely private operator that funded itself then yes, for this and the many other things they do they should be financially crippled. However, it doesn’t work like that as the tax payer handles it in a round about way down it would be somewhat self defeating.

As we have seen for decades, issues where the railway gains will not be fixed for months, or years, if ever whilst ever they can get away with it. Issues that punish them financially will be fixed immediately, even if it means hindering passengers further.

2 retailer examples : Trainline was overcharging 16 to 25 railcard users at the crossover time in the morning. This went on for 2 years despite them being aware.
Trainline recently allowed journeys with wild via points, this was fixed very quickly by completely removing the ‘via’ function on their site and app for several days.

2 issues create due to incompetence, one dealt with swiftly one left for years.

 

[Par]

Should there be sanctions? Well, if they were still an entirely private operator that funded itself then yes, for this and the many other things they do they should be financially crippled. However, it doesn’t work like that as the tax payer handles it in a round about way down it would be somewhat self defeating.

As we have seen for decades, issues where the railway gains will not be fixed for months, or years, if ever whilst ever they can get away with it. Issues that punish them financially will be fixed immediately, even if it means hindering passengers further.

2 retailer examples : Trainline was overcharging 16 to 25 railcard users at the crossover time in the morning. This went on for 2 years despite them being aware.
Trainline recently allowed journeys with wild via points, this was fixed very quickly by completely removing the ‘via’ function on their site and app for several days.

2 issues create due to incompetence, one dealt with swiftly one left for years.

Very depressing that.

Personally I’m not out of pocket, but I’m sure others must be, those who have unwittingly been overcharged.

I was assured 3 weeks ago that this would be fixed (it hasn‘t). I have now today received another assurance that it will be fixed, direct quote from Avanti below:-

“We greatly appreciate the information that you have provided us with regarding the railcard discount not applying correctly for the bank holiday of June 3rd. Whatever the reason for this issue is - be it that this bank holiday was overlooked, or that this issue extends even further - please rest assured that I have passed all of the details provided on to the relevant department to deal with this accordingly.”

So, we’ll see.