I have just tried to purchase two tickets from London to Newcastle on the GNER website, and discovered that they cannot for the moment accept overseas registrations, and won't sell tickets (even for pick-up at fast-ticket terminals in their stations) unless you are registered. Has anyone else run into this, and is there a way around it? GNER appears to be significantly cheaper than, say, nationalrail or Virgin, so I'm hoping I won't have to go to them.

That seems odd - just Thurs I registered (got my confirmation back) so I could look up some fares. Has something changed in the last 2 days??

Maybe clear your cookies and re-register as a UK resident.

I'm Spanish, and I registered just to see the tickets price... Registration is free, there's no problem about that.

Wish i could help.

I wasn't aware that the nationalrail site didn't show the lowest cost tickets for any of the vendors.

Thank you for your replies. I emailed GNER who say they are working on the problem but don't know when it will be fixed. It appears to affect new non-UK registrants. Luckily for me, I more-or-less accidentally found a work-around.

The work-around is to go ahead and try to buy the tickets; if they give you a chance to fill in your full address at the registration stage, you're golden: they have probably fixed the problem. If not, fill in the fields they do show, and sign out. Then go back to the website and click on the "Customer Care" tab (upper right of page). Click on "My Account" (mid-left) and log in using the username (your email address?) and password you chose when you registered. Next, open "Update personal details". Here all the fields needed to fill in your address should be visible. It is OK to fill in the postal code field, but don't click on the search button beside it, as it only works for UK addresses. From there go back to the home page and book your tickets. You will still have to pick them up at a FastTicket terminal or have them sent to a UK address -- they won't deliver to non-UK addresses.

janisj, my registration was confirmed too, but it didn't have my address, and I couldn't buy tickets until I went through the update procedure above.

Dukey, the London-Newcastle tickets I bought for the 1400 train on 25 May 07 were "GNER STD ADVANCE3" and cost £25.80 each. They were listed at £29 on Virgin and Nationalrail. The GNER website talks about a "web discount" (not on all tickets), and also boasts that there are no "booking fees". Maybe I should have said "a bit" cheaper...

Cheers, John

It sounds like you found a solution, but a couple weeks ago I was able to register and was ready to purchase my ticket until it asked for my credit card billing address. It rejected my US address, so I used my UK B&B address--and it was accepted and I got my confirmation. Interesting.

I also use the thetrainline.co.uk similar prices and allow pick up at fast machines

<<< I also use the thetrainline.co.uk similar prices >>>

Similar = MORE expensive because GNER give a 10% discount for it's tickets booked on it's trains on it's website whereas thetrainline charges an additional fee for CC use.

Plus they use the same basic software as GNER and therefore the same problem is likely.