Advance purchase of train tickets

This isn't something the Steves travel company will help with. Did you notify the bank or credit union or company you have your credit card with that you would be using it in Great Britain. If you didn't your purchase(s) will likely be blocked, as it was.

Actually,the RS staff WAS able to help me, by suggesting that I just ignore the "start date" box. Also, the web site seemed to want to classify my Visa card as Am Ex, so I finally just used my Am Ex card, and it went through fine! The Visa was not blocked by the bank. For one thing, I had made hotel reservations in the UK with it in January of this year (and the previous year for another trip) and never had a problem. I also used it often on my trip last year. But I will notify them before I go to make sure I don't get stranded. Can't be too careful! Thanks for your advice!

Because this is a public message board and other people reading this thread later might get the idea that they can call the RS office with questions like this, I'll just say that I wouldn't dream of taking up their time with something like this. It was very nice of them to advise you, but I have always considered pre- and post-tour arrangements to be my own responsibility. They are no doubt busting their butts trying to help their many thousands of tour customers with questions that actually pertain to the tour itself. Getting there and home is down to me - excluding directional questions related to the instructions the office provides for getting to the first hotel.

Actually, that is not the response I got. But I'm sure they are very grateful for your concern on their behalf. They do mention in their advertising that their travel department is available to help with making travel arrangements. As a matter of fact, I was hoping they could make the train reservations for me when I called, but was pleased to find it wasn't necessary. The gentleman I spoke with had personal experience with these web sites and his advice was invaluable.

I think the purpose of the message board is to help people find answers to questions like this. Since I wasn't getting the information I needed here, it seemed apropos to call the RS travel people. And because it IS a public message board, perhaps someone else experiencing the same problem will find the answer here and not have to call the RS people. I tried (and will try again now) to answer the previous question that was never answered, but it wouldn't post for some reason. Isn't technology wonderful?

I get your point, and it's a fair point, but I just used the Search field in the upper right corner of this page with the query phrase 'credit card rejected national rail' and found the answer in less than a minute in earlier threads.

Good for you, Rose.

Sometimes I think the websites are just fickle. I used my VISA card to book one train trip, but had it rejected with a different train company. That site liked the AMEX; go figure. Just remember if you're going to pick up your tickets at the station you have to have the card you used to book the tickets. Have a great trip!

As it happens, I printed out the tickets from here! Sometimes I love technology...and sometimes I want to throw it out the window!

BTW, Rose, I tried several times to respond to both of your private messages, and it doesn't work for some reason.

It's sometimes necessary to delete the previous message text before typing a reply. If the new reply goes over the allowed character count (which doesn't show for PMs -- grrrr...), the attempt to send will fail. I think this forum software is old and has several quirks. Thanks for the effort, though, and for saying something here. Glad I caught it. :)