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Need help getting advanced fares....

Posted by (West Sacramento, California, USA) on

for our trip from London to Edinburgh. I have tried for two days, since I was sent an alert that the tickets were now available, but I cannont get the transaction to go through. I am trying to get 5 tickets for the Kings Cross to Edinburgh train on Wednesday, 25 June 2008. I get all the way through the transaction and it says they are unable to authorise my credit card. My card company says they are not even getting the request, that it is on the train lines end that there is a problem.

Has anyone had this problem? Is there a secret to entering a U.S. address on the form? I have it entered as an international address. This is all on National Express East Coast web site, for the advanced purchase fares. BTW, Rai-Europe's website says they are not available, but they were released Thursday. Also, I have spoken with the web support people at the rail line, and they have no answer either.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

Kevin

Posted by
57 posts

We had been trying for three days to make our train reservation. Yesterday, I called my Credit Card company and asked why my card was being declined. They said that it must be on the other end, because they had no record of a transaction being tried.

I called thetrainline directly to see if I could book on the phone. They informed me that the trip I was trying to book (2nd week of June) wouldn't be released for another week or so. (I wonder why it appeared available on the website, but I couldn't book it?) Totally confusing, but I'll wait and try again next week.

Posted by
225 posts

This past Thursday, I purchased 4 tickets from London to Newcastle on that same line for June 25th. Didn't have any problem other than the Mastercard I used then forced me to use a secure code process which I hadn't already signed up for. Anyway, the purchase went through and I received email confirmations. I did use the international address process and didn't have any issues.

One additional fact. NXEC does release tickets on Thursday about 90 days in advance. However, they haven't released the "advanced purchase" (discount) tickets for any weekend in June due to engineering work that has yet to be scheduled.

Posted by
281 posts

Thanks to the replies above I now have our tickets. I tried the trainline website, but they would not allow me to purchase because I was residing outside the U.K. The tickets definitely show up as available to purchase, so I followed Eric's lead and used my MasterCard instead of the Visa Card I was trying to use. It worked--I just don't get to collect the airmiles I would have had with the Visa Card.

C'est la vie

Thanks again to the helpline respondents.
Kevin

Posted by
208 posts

Something you might want to check (maybe through a travel agent?) is whether or not you should have not only the ticket, but a reserved seat as well. We did London-Edinburgh just before Christmas several years ago and the TA we worked with (due to my father's medical conditions - we needed more than we could do on our own) reserved the actual seats since the train was full. Luckily we did - because the train was full and we were guaranteed seats. Some people made the trip standing or sitting on their luggage. Not a comfortable journey for them. Just something to look into.

Posted by
225 posts

When I purchased my tickets, they came with reservations. Seat numbers and all right on the confirmation email. I didn't have to do anything separate to get them.

Posted by
281 posts

Eric is correct, when the tickets were purchased it came with the seat reservation right on the confirmation. This worked out great, just some snafu with the visa system over the weekend apparently.

Kevin

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