Beware Online Ticket Touts

Savvy consumers watching the pounds this year may think they are getting the best deal booking travel online from an independent booking site, but in reality, they could be paying more than double the rate offered by the train operating company.

Southern Railway has investigated its most popular routes and compared costs for the same journey booked via commercial ticket sites. The railway operator found that in every single case it was cheaper to buy direct from Southern, even when travelling outside their operating area.

A journey from London Victoria to Brighton costs just £4.50 when booked in advance via Southernrailway.com, but the same ticket at the same time on the same day was priced at £5 on other ticket websites*. Addition hidden booking and credit card fees boosted the overall cost of the journey to £9.50 if, for example, bought from The Trainline – that’s 111% more for the same ticket*.

With headline adverts like ‘Save up to 80% on train tickets’, customers could be mistaken into thinking they are getting a good deal by using a commercial ticket site. In fact, these percentages only compare the commercial sites’ prices to the cost of buying a ticket at a station on the day of travel, when even greater savings could be made by buying advance tickets direct from the train operators’ websites. The truth is that all commercial ticket sites include a mark-up on the face value of the tickets sold, and then create extra revenue with added booking and credit card fees, further increasing the cost to the consumer.

Alistair Buckle, head of marketing at Southern Railway said; “We understand our customers don’t want to pay more than they have to, and we want to help them do this whenever they travel using our trains. As well as offering the best prices for travel within the Southern network, customers can book a ticket for any UK rail journey with us, safe in the knowledge there won’t be any hidden charges, such as credit card and booking fees, added to the price of the ticket.”

Not just that, if customers are unable to travel for any reason, they have nothing to fear, as they will be able to claim their money back with Southern’s hassle-free money-back promise. Tickets booked online, but not collected, can be refunded with no charges online at www.southernrailway.com as promised by Southern’s ‘Rainy Day Guarantee’ – no other rail operator offers a refund policy like this.

Rainy Day Guarantee – Terms and Conditions

• This offer is valid for Anytime, Off-Peak Day, Off-Peak and Super Off-Peak Day tickets nationwide when purchased online at southernrailway.com, including Child tickets and discounted Railcard tickets
• This offer includes journeys booked via southernrailway.com
• on Southern, Gatwick Express and other Train Operators outside of the Southern network.
• All other tickets including Advance, Daysave, Downlander, Super Group and Season Tickets do not apply to this offer.
• Tickets must be purchased online via southernrailway.com between 1st November - 21st May 2011.
• Tickets can be booked for journeys up to 12 weeks in advance of the date of booking.
• For the Rainy Day Guarantee to be valid, you must not collect your tickets from the Ticket On Departure (TOD) machines in the station - if you do collect your tickets, the Rainy Day Guarantee will no longer apply.
• To apply for a refund of your ticket you will need to log in to ‘My Account’ on southernrailway.com, click on ‘Apply for refund’, fill in the details, specifying Rainy Day Guarantee as the reason and click the submit request button at the bottom of the page.
• All refund requests under Rainy Day Guarantee should be made on southernrailway.com within 28 days of the expiry date of the ticket.
• There is no limit to the number of times you can apply for a refund under the Rainy Day Guarantee so long as the ticket you bought online via southernrailway.com is an Anytime, Off-Peak Day, Off-Peak or Super Off-Peak Day ticket bought between 1st November – 21st May 2011.
• The Rainy Day Guarantee refund process will take up to 7 days and your bank account will be credited when the refund is processed by your bank