travel to the etape caledonia

godihatehills

Anyone going up tomorrow from Bedfordshire?
I booked a train ticket on the 17 th march through the trainline.com and was told I would need to contact them nearer the time to book a space for the bike....
tried beginning of the week they said stil ltoo early,
tried yesterda y they said contact east mids trains direct which I didonly to find out that all spaces for bikes are fully booked, and I should have done it when I booked the ticket intially.
tried complaining to trainline and they wont give me a refund, or help in anyway.....
joy oh and the complaints email doesnt work

Wamas

Take the wheels off the bike, cover it in black bags, and claim it is just luggage.

Worth a try!!

godihatehills

To Whom it may concern
I write in reference to a recent booking made March 17th 2010 with www.thetrainline.com reference xxxxxxxxxxxx I intended to travel to Scotland this weekend in order to compete in an annual bike race in Support of Macmillan Cancer Trust however this will not be possible due to misleading and unhelpful service.

The booking went smoothly initially. I used your website until I realised there was no way to book space for my bike on the train, at this point I thought it better to speak to one of your customer representatives in order to secure the space. However having spoken in person to an agent at your call centre I was told they would be unable to reserve the space at that date and I would need to do so closer the time of travel. As the online booking window was still open I chose to complete the booking online as the details had all been completed, nothing was confirmed over the phone. I received the tickets several days afterwards as requested.
I have since tried to reserve the space for my bike through yourselves two further times until I was told that actually I would need to contact the service provider East Coast Rail, 24 hours in advance. On calling them this morning I was told that spaces for bikes on my allotted train were fully booked and that I should have spoken to them on booking my ticket in March.
Due to Misinformation from the trainline.com I have been prevented from travelling to the Etape Caledonia with my bike and as such have no way of competing, rendering my personal ticket and entire weekend completely pointless.
I spoke to your Customer Services team who were unable to provide a satisfactory solution apart from the generous offering of another ticket at a further £112 plus admin fee. Even more frustrating was the fact that your supervisor spoke to a back office team to check bike spaces before confirming they were fully booked and that I could have booked through yourselves in March. She then went on to comment that as she could see now record of previous conversations that I was somehow confused and had spoken to another company. How patronising and insulting.
I feel that your procedures and policies are unhelpful and that your staff training leads to evasive and improper management of queries. This has cost a UK charity numerous donations due my non completion of the event and I have lost my race entry fee, accommodation fee, car hire fee as well as the cost of the train travel, a total value well in excess of £250.
Should colleagues at my place of work ask for recommendations for train travel in the future I will direct them to the numerous complaints found online concerning your continued and well documented poor service and urge them to use another vendor.
Rest assured I will not be using you in the future considering the appalling situation I find myself in due to your company’s incompetence.

kelsen

I read something a while back that somebody just popped a complete bike into a cardboard bike box and took it onto a no-bike carriage without any problems.

fnb1

are you sorted?

PM me if not, depending on where you are I may be able to help