Does anyone have experience making changes to point-to-point rail tickets? We booked our trip to Portugal from Tripmasters and it included point to point open tickets from Coimbra to Lisbon, but we would prefer to change our boarding station from Coimbra to the Entroncameto rail station which is one of the stops on the way to Lisbon. According to the company, Tripmasters, the only way they can make a change is if I mail the actual paper ticket to them and they reissue a new ticket. Unfortunately, the trip is in 10 days and there's not enough time. We are hoping that we can make the change at the train station, but we have no experience with the point-to-point open tickets and would like to know if anyone has done this.
Thank you!
Posted by
Basel, Switzerland
8889 posts
1) You say this is an "open" ticket? Do you mean by this it is valid on any train on a given day, and does not have reserved seats?
2) You say the train stops at Entroncamento after Coimbra. If that is so, no problem. There is no problem getting on at a later station. Don't forget trains don't have check-in. you just get on and tickets are checked on the moving train. So nobody will notice.
If you have reserved seats (see first point) you may find somebody has taken them, just take another free seat.
I found out Coimbra has two stations, Coimbra-A in the city centre, and Coimbra-B which is the main station outside the city centre, the trains to Lisbon depart from Coimbra-B, if you start at Coimba-A you will need to change trains at Coimbra-B.
I did a query for a random date and time and got the list of stops below, you seem to be correct. The stops for my random train area:
Trains starts at Guarda dep 07:07
(9 other intermediate stops)
Coimbra-B arr 09:21 dep 09:22
Alfarelos arr 09:35 dep 09:36
Pombal arr 09:51 dep 09:52
Caxarias arr 10:08 dep 10:09
Fatima arr 10:16 dep 10:17
Entroncamento arr 10:30 dep 10:31
Santarem arr 10:47 dep 10:48
Vila Franca de Xira arr 11:08 dep 11:09
Lisboa Oriente arr 11:22 dep 11:23
Lisboa Santa Apolonia arr 11:30
P.S., why did you get your tickets from "Tripmasters" and not direct from CP (the railway company)?
Posted by
OP
2 posts
First of all, thank you for your prompt and thorough reply. I will try to respond to your points to clarify the situation and perhaps feel more confident that we can board the train at Entoncamento without any problems. Stress is not a good travel companion.
1) The open ticket that we were issued is good for travel from 25/9/2018 to 28/9/2018. We don't have reserved seats. They were issued with a statement from Tripmasters that states:
Please be advised that this inter-city rail transfer is an open ticket only. These trains are COMPULSORY RESERVATION; you may be required to purchase a supplemental seat reservaion locally at the train station. You must check the departures schedule at the station to determine the train you wish to ride. Or visit www.raileurope.com
2) Based on your query, I can see that the train stops at Entroncamento from Coimbra B which is the station that we were going to use so it looks like all we have to do is show up at the Entroncamento station and board the train after our tour. We don't really want reserved seats if they are not necessary, so I suppose that boarding the train without speaking to the ticket agent may be a better plan.
3) We had never used Tripmasters for a trip, but it seemed like a convenient "one stop shop", but as with all conveniences, you sacrifice some flexibility. I think that we got a good price for the trip through this website, but it has limited our flexibility.
Just for the record, we are taking a tour out of Coimbra with Templar Knights to see the sights in the city of Tomar. Since this is south of Coimbra and closer to Lisbon, our guide suggested that we board at this train station instead of going back to Coimbra.
Based on the information that I provided, do you still feel that boarding the train at Entroncamento without speaking to a ticket agent is the best option?