I have been trying all day to make purchases from British rail sites, with no success.
Tonight I have been trying to pay for tickets from Edinburgh to London (on East Coast) using a VISA card from BankofAmerica, but they keep rejecting my payment due to billing address. I found the International Address box and entered my billing address exactly as it appears on the bills I receive. I had a similar problem earlier today, trying to purchase Senior Railcards at Senior Railcard UK. Their website had no allowance for non-UK addresses. *I have not tried using a MasterCard or American Express on these sites, because mine charge hefty foreign transaction fees (and use the same billing address anyway). Have any Americans found a method to make UK train purchases in advance?
Posted by
OP
Santa Maria, California, USA
31 posts
I called Bank of America and discovered that the problem is with VISA online purchases in general. A huge number of them are failing recently and they don't know why. It has nothing to do with the accounts. They are puzzled and investigating. They predicted no problem using MasterCard or debit card, only VISAs.
I was finally able to make a purchase from East Coast, using a debit card.
Posted by
Boston, Ma, USA
5 posts
I bought a UK train ticket last week using a British Airways Chase Visa with no issues.
Posted by
Bloomington, IL, USA
9369 posts
The Seat61 website suggests buying your ticket through Virgin Trains because it is easiest for US credit cards, for some reason. I bought tickets there with a Visa with absolutely no problem. Www.virgintrains.co.uk They also charge no booking fee and no extra charges for using a credit card.
Posted by
Vernon, Canada
32329 posts
Nancy, I've had some trouble in the past buying tickets on the East Coast Rail website for a trip from Edinburgh to London. I called their office in the U.K. and they suggested clearing the cache and cookies in the computer. That seemed to resolve the problem and the purchase went through. You'll have to pick up the tickets at a Kiosk at Edinburgh Waverly, using the same credit card you used to purchase the tickets. Cheers!
Posted by
OP
Santa Maria, California, USA
31 posts
Clearing the cache didn't help with East Coast for me, Ken, but after calling Bank of America and learning there was a temporary problem with most of their Visa cards, I went back and tried EastCoast again at midnight, NOT using the Visa card, and the Edinburgh to London purchase went through with my debit card. (I chose the Print Your Own ticket option because it allowed Passport as ID and I was afraid then that I might end up paying with a card I wasn't bringing.) Tonight I followed Nancy's suggestion of booking via Virgin Trains. I booked London to York, York to Edinburgh, and a round trip London to Bath. It went very smoothly. They easily accepted my US address and the Travel VISA that I couldn't use last night. They saved all my info, highlighted lowest prices, and made it very easy to just keep adding another trip. The only funny/bad thing I later noticed is that Virgin gave my husband & I EACH a window seat in different rows, on each route. I tried to get around it on the last trip by not requesting window seats, but we got them anyway. I'm really impressed by how much money I saved by claiming Senior RailCard rate. It was always at least a third, and often close to 50%! Now I just have to get those Railcards ... which I can do when we arrive in London.