Can I book train tkts (London-York) with non UK credit card?
 

Hello all,
I want to book my London-York daytrip. Is there more than one train station in york? Can I use my non UK credit card to book these tkts on nationalrail.co.uk?

Thanks so much

Esperanza,

if you go to the opening page of the website, and put London in as your departure station, and York as your destination, and select the date and time you want to go, when you press "go" it will come up with London King's Cross and York, which is what you want for central York.

I've no reason to suppose they won't accept your credit card - i'm sure that they take bookings from all over the world.

Hi, Esperanza.
The past 2 months, I've had some bookings go through and others not (on my US credit card). I tried my visa and visa debit, but no luck. After calling visa, who told me all appeared fine as I'd called them earlier to notify them of upcoming UK charges, I had to call National Rail to book over the phone. And they sent me the eticket by email right away.

And to answer your other question, there's only one train station in York. Enjoy your trip to this beautiful city.

As long as your credit card company is aware that you will be making overseas charges you should have no problem. I never have.

I booked on the trainline- http://www.thetrainline.com/us/?href...Fatj7Aodiy4AYQ with a US credit card. Easy, peasy!

There have been problems with using non-UK (esp US) credit cards with some booking sites, but www.virgintrains.co.uk is known to work with US card and you print out your ticket at the station prior to boarding. Virgin will sell tickets for all UK train journeys and has no extra charge for using credit cards.

The Trainline makes a charge for using credit card, while Virgin Trains does not.

Thank you all very much for the help and info. I will try to book now on virgintrains.co.uk.

If you pick up your tickets at the train station, you will need to use the same credit card. Have a great time!

"If you pick up your tickets at the train station, you will need to use the same credit card"

Not strictly accurate.

If you collect prepaid tickets from a ticket machine at a railway station, you need the original card. If for some reason you haven't got it, you can go to a manned ticket office. The explosion in the number of machines has enabled a reduction in ticket office staffing, so queues at manned offices can be formidable - but that's a different issue.

I have booked London/York tickets with a non-UK card - and printed out the tickets from the machine. No problem.
Sometimes you can print the tickets at home, but not always.

There is one station in York, and it's a short walk to the centre of town.

eastcoast.co.uk is the main company that runs trains between London & York but Grand Central do some journeys and are generally cheaper if you are a late booker.

The main UK website for trains is nationalrail.co.uk which has links to all the companies that run trains in the UK. However you can book (virtually) all train tickets in the UK through ANY of the UK train companies even if they don't run the route so if you can't book through one company you can try another

The idea about needing the same credit card would be a good idea in all situations as sometimes vendors want to see the same credit card the tickets were purchased with as a form of ID, not just if you need to use a machine to retrieve them. I've had that happen in various places, including stores, airlines, ticket agencies, and train stations. I have no experience in the UK train station with that concept, but it wouldn't surprise me and I do think it is always a good idea to carry on you the card you have bought things with online in advance.

Concur with Christina--lots of hotels, etc., want to see the actual card you booked with.

That being said, I had no problem paying for train tix with US VISA.

Thank you all so much for the info.

Please book at www.eastcoast.co.uk as they not only charge no credit card fees, often give a discount for booking on line and allow you to choose which seats you would like, forward or rear facing, around a table or individual seats. Look at the first class advance fares as for a few £ more than standard class, you can get a reasonable meal and drinks, including alcohol after 1100 served at your seat. I just booked a return to York in First Class for £75, I think it is worth it