ACP Rail -- any info?
 

I have just heard from a friend that ACP International Rail offers much better prices than Petrabax or RailEurope. I have compared the rates and it seems to be true, but I have never heard of ACP Rail. Has anyone used them?

It's a Canadian company (never heard of them until today). If you think you can get a better deal through them, then by all means go for it. The sad fact is that you can always get a much better deal when booking though the rail line itself, SNCF, Renfe, CP, Trenitalia, BAHN, etc., then dealing with a broker or other third party.

Yes, why are you even thinking of dealing with RailEurope? Usually only sells a subset of available tickets, and the priciest ones at that, plus service fees. If you need help figuring out how to book directly with RENFE, try this:

http://www.seat61.com/Spain-trains.htm

Yep I agree with the others - in addition as far as I know ACP Rail deal mostly with passes - you don't mention where you are going but depending on the amount of travel you'll be doing by rail and how fast you want to get between cities, it will be worth figuring out whether point to point tickets are better or a railpass. If it's point to point then booking through the national rail operator or someone who doesn't charge an agent fee is going to be your best bet. There are plenty of threads on this forum to help with that! Happy railing

I booked a BritRail pass with ACP Rail for this summer...they have a promo on right now for a free travel day. LIke the others mentioned, you didn't say where you're going so I can't really offer much advice. All I can say is they're a legitimate company and I had good service. When I looked them up originally, I also saw this company that gave their opinion on point to point tickets vs. a pass: http://indietravelpodcast.com/travel...point-tickets/ Hope this helps!

Please remember that regardless of where you buy them the <B>base</B> price of passes is set <B>by the railroads</B> and other agencies includng RailEurope (which is the marketing arm of two European railroads BTW) can add on processing and shipping fees.

Be also aware that some rail passes are available after you get to Europe.

Kathleen - but see also:

http://indietravelpodcast.com/travel...a-eurail-pass/

Also, they say one reason to use a pass is if you want to stop off between two points, but seat61.com says you can do that with point-to-point tickets too.

ACP Rail is unreliable. We bought a ticket from Copenhagen to Stockholm from ACP Rail. They issued a type of e-mail voucher to be redeemed in Copenhagen at the train station of any 7-11 store. The voucher did not work despite the kind assistance of the front desk clerk of the Ascot Hotel who literally ran to the train station to try to sort the matter out. We were able to reach ACP Rail who repeated the written instructions and after several calls and e-mail, and failed efforts at redemption, instructed us to buy a new ticket on the spot for which ACP Rail will reimburse us. We did that with difficulty (not ACP Rail's fault, but the fault of primitive US credit card technology). The new ticket ended up costing $114 more than the original. ACP Rail refunded the original fare but contrary to its promise it left us with the additional expense. Thus, much of our very brief stay in Copenhagen was devoted to dealing with a mess due to ACP Rail's invalid ticket voucher and on top of that we had to pay spend an extra $114! Subsequent communications with ACP Rail yielded only a "sorry for the inconvenience" and an assertion that they were "unable" to refund the extra fare. Their problem was not that they were unable to make the full refund, they were simply unwilling. We will certainly never use them again and hope that the unpleasantness of dealing with them will not permanently spoil our memories of Europe.

Yes, why are you even thinking of dealing with RailEurope? Usually only sells a subset of available tickets, and the priciest ones at that, plus service fees>

Not always true anymore - is for many countries but not say Italy where RE now has fares at times even LOWER than Trenitalia - so always check to see - RE is more and more trying to integrate itself into European national rail sites to offer lower fares but still in many cases do not - they offer fully flexible tickets and those are often not much more than ones online from national railways sites but they do not offer the deep discounted for many - except Italy they do - working thru www.italotreno.com, the competitor to RailEurope and I think the SNCF (French Railways - owner of RE) has a stake in Italotren.

Anyway ACP Rail is the old British Rail franchise/outlet in North America - just changed there name and moved up to Canada for some weird reason. They are similar to RE except emphasize BritRail Passes - being I believe the sole wholesaler of them in North America.

Wiki says:

In 2000, the Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC), which brings together all of Britain's national rail train companies, appointed ACP Rail to be the official distributor for BritRail and ACP Rail continues to do so>

ACP Rail is a very reputable company which of course can have a few hiccups like janusz says. they also power www.railsaver.com I believe.

ACP is incompetent and untrustworthy. They issued us worthless vouchers for a trip from Copenhagen to Stockholm, After hours off desperate e-mails and phone calls and when it became clear the vouchers were indeed worthless, ACP instructed us to buy new tickets on the spot and that they would pay for them. They did not. They only refunded the original price and we had to pay an extra $114. Be warned. ACP Rail can be incompetent and dishonest. Would you like to be the next fool who trusted ACP?

You must be a disgrunted ex-employee. Three posts, all against ACP.

Yeh don't pass the smell test!

On Janusz's other thread he stated he bought an invalid ticket. I wonder how that is possible?

How was the purchase of an invalid ticket possible? ACP issued a voucher with a invoice number that was supposed to be used in Copenhagen to redeem an actual ticket. The number did not work, even the hotel clerk made a special trip to the train station (an amazing act of kindness) and found that the number did not work. Several e-mail and calls to ACP did not help so ACP told me to buy a ticket on the spot and they would reimburse me for it. They did not reimburse us for the ticket we bought at their direction. Instead they reimbursed us for the original ticket and we had to pay the additional $114. This mess occupied much of our brief stay in Copenhagen, cost us more than we originally had contracted for and felt a very bad after taste.

Are we disgruntled ex-employees? No, we are customers who were cheated and have no other redress than to warn of others of ACP's incompetence and dishonesty.

Here are the specifics to the invalid ticket issued by ACP:
Date Jun 9, 2014
PNR Locator AAANVJ Passenger Contact Name Mr. Janusz Duzinkiewicz
Passenger Email [email protected]
Net Order (USD)176 First Day of Travel Jun 19, 2014
Outlet Name acp-america-USD
Outlet Contact
Outlet Email
Sj-resplus E-ticket And Reservation -
Non Refundable
Ticket Type One-Way
Status Confirmed Service Class 2nd Class
Collect your ticket on departure at the station counter or at Pressbyran or 7-11 stores using your railway confirmation
number: BUP7010Q.
Itinerary
Date Origin Destination Train # Departure Arrival
Jun 19, 2014 Köbenhavn H Stockholm C 536 11:16 16:39
Name Car Seat Type Orientation
Mr. Janusz Duzinkiewicz 5 19 Seat | 2 class | Open coach Aisle
Mr. Daniel Krsak 5 20 Seat | 2 class | Open coach Window

The railway confirmation number: BUP7010Q was invalid which we found out only in Copenhagen. We tried to redeem the ticket at 3 different 7-11 stores and the main train station. We asked the desk clerk at the Ascot hotel about it. He volunteered to run (literally) to the train station. Returning rather disheveled he said the number did not work nor did any combination of the letters and number he could think of. We called and e-mailed ACP. The initial clerk could not help so we had to wait for the supervisor, a Mr Shamash. He too had no idea why the confirmation number issued by ACP did not work. He told us then over the phone to buy a new ticket and ACP will reimburse us for it when we sent a copy of the new ticket. We had an added problem since there were only vending machines for Swedish railroads at the Copenhagen station and though our credit cards has a chip we has neglected to remember there pins. This was our fault. It seemed there was no way to get the ticket and a sleepless night followed. Then in the morning we tried my ATM card from a local bank in the States. The card had no chip but it did have a pin. That was apparently sufficient and we got the new ticket to Stockholm. Later we received an e-mail that ACP would only reimburse us for the original ticket. The new one cost an additional $114. ACP thus issued us an invalid reservation and went back on its promise to reimburse us for the new ticket they told us to buy. The refund took over a month because they claimed that Swedish Railroads was not answering their inquiries due to summer vacation. In the end we had a nightmarish experience and lost $114. We cannot have but a most negative view of ACP. Their incompetence and dishonesty disgust.

I am very disappointed in ACP Rail. I booked a train ticket for Finland over 10 days ago and the ticket still hasn't arrived. I had them send the ticket via regular mail (which costs an additional 5 Euros), instead of paying 19 Euros for a courier, which I thought was unnecessary given that I live in Germany, and the ticket is being sent from London.

I am now leaving in one day and the ticket still hasn't arrived. I called their customer service in the UK, who informed me that the ticket was posted on May 31st, but that I was very foolish to rely on regular mail. I should have sent it by courier for the 19 additional Euros! Nothing like being lectured by a service agent!

When I asked if I could have the ticket sent by email, she told me it was impossible. All I can do is buy a new ticket and send the original back to ACP Rail for reimbursement - if it ever arrives!

Not helpful and very unprofessional. This was the first and last time I will do business with ACP Rail!

And you probably could have booked your ticket directly on the Finnish Rail website.

I purchased two tickets from Zurich to Milan on the ACPRail website. They advertise the economical way to buy tickets. I paid $114 for the two tickets. After that I happened on the SBB rail website and discovered the fare was actually 21euros. I immediately phoned ACP and was told that because my ticket was non-refundable there was nothing that could be done. After numerous emails with ACP agents I asked for some consideration as an act of good will, $50 credit. There answer was that was not going to happen and I should have a nice trip. So my trip advice is to use some other service rather than ACPRail as they don't offer an economical rate.

I had a very bad experience using ACPrail website this summer.

I was going to book a rail ticket on the Britrail website. As an overseas traveller, I thought Britrail was the official rail operator in the UK. Little did I know that it is actually only a website run by a Canadian travel agent ACPrail! The website was poorly designed. Instead of buying an actual ticket, I must have paid for a booking of 'reservation' instead. (I didn't know I could buy a reservation!) After making the payment, I sensed something was wrong and wrote an email to Britrail to double check. However, the email address provided for inquiry was invalid and my inquiry was bounced. I looked up the 'terms and conditions' link on the website, and got an URL not found error. At that point I did receive an email confirmation that printed 'your ticket purchased.....' So I thought it should be ok and I went on the trip, from London to Durham.

On the day of my trip, to my greatest shock, the train station could no locate my ticket even though I showed them the online booking confirmation. No one at the station knew that I have only booked a 'reservation', not a 'ticket'! So in order to carry on with my trip, I had to buy a ticket on the spot for 3 times the cost!

After I returned from my trip, I wrote to ACPrail and LNER (London North England Rail) the actual rail operator to ask for help. Of course, no one would help me but blamed me that I only purchased a reservation, not a ticket.

I felt very victimized because of the following:

1. The webpage design and the online confirmation did not clearly state that I bought only a reservation, not a ticket.

2. I did do my dual diligence and tried to email them to confirm about the transaction. Their bogus email address did not allow me to do that.

3. I could not read the terms and conditions either because the URL was wrong.

As an overseas traveller, I felt very disappointed with the customer service of both operators. I was definitely trying to purchase a proper ticket ahead of time, yet the mistake has caused me 3 times as much in the end. I was hoping that they can refund the difference in cost between the online ticket price and on-the-spot price to me. But they will not consider at all, even after numerous email exchange.

I am giving up dealing with them both ACPrail and LNER.

On the other hand, I feel lucky that I did not buy any other tickets of my journey through Britrail (ACPrail) for that trip, as I felt something was not right. Instead, I bought 3 other sets of tickets through LOCO2, and everything was fine.

Throughout my past 10+ years of making online purchase, I have never made such a mistake. I just want other travellers to be aware of the potential pitfall if you use Britral (ACPrail) website.

Even though ACP Rail is the appointed seller of all British Rail tickets and passes in North America it has no relation other than that. The above story is a reason never to use a re-seller and go direct to National Rail Enquiries - Official source for UK train times and timetables to book directly with British train franchises thru that site. It is meant to serve travel agents who sell tickets blindly to customers who are clueless about this.