<BR>I purchased tickets for a rail journey in 3 weeks with thetrainline.com website. I live in the U.S. Has anyone in the U.S. used them before? I understand that the tickets will not be mailed to me. But from what I have read, I will receive a PIN number &amp; I will be able to print my tickets from a machine in the train station. It has been 2 days &amp; I have not received such a PIN number. Should I be worried? Has anyone else had any luck corresponding with these people?<BR><BR>thanks

In my experience, mail from the UK to North America takes about 5 days to arrive, so don't worry yet.

<BR>Sorry...I should have stated that &quot;I will receive a PIN number &lt;&lt;via email&gt;&gt; in a few days&quot;. I have not received that PIN number yet. Should I be concerned? Is this how the process normally works with the trainline.com ??

<BR>Any help?<BR>TTT

Your e-mail confirmation is generated automatically within minutes of your booking going through on-line. If you have chosen the option to collect the ticket through FastTicket machine, then the e-mail should contain PIN number which you must enter in order to get your ticket.<BR>I suspect something has gone wrong with your booking (wrong e-mail address?) and suggest you phone customer service on 011 44 870 010 1296 (from US). It would help them to trace your record if you can quote the booking reference - have you printed out the final page of on-line booking? Also check if your crdit card has been debited. Hope it'll be sorted.

I had used trainline several times in the past and picked up ticket at station using PIN number. However, much to my dismay this is no longer the case when I bought a ticket in June. I realized my mistake when looking at the booking record again and called the same day of booking online but it was no help. They reported they could not do anything to cancel the booking and issue a refund. I had to buy another ticket when I arrived in London. I was told I would have to wait for my credit card statement and then send a copy for a refund minus a 5gbp service charge. I emailed the website that this was not very clear when booking but no avail. I did have to wait for the statement and send a copy by mail and then wait for a refund even though they clearly had a record of the transaction when I phoned. <BR>Luckily my ticket was not that expensive so to pay twice in a short period did not break the bank. I also realized that it was the same price bought at the station a couple of days before departure so nothing was really gained by booking ahead anyway. That could be different if you are worried about no seats being available when you arrive. You can have the ticket sent to a UK address, so if your hotel would accept that might be a choice. Also you can still have tickets picked up at certain stations but it is very limited and would not work in my case. <BR>I was very disappointed as I had used the trainline and booked successfully several times before. I think now the booking is handled not by the train company but someone independent. I wasn't exactly sure but I was told that was it. It did take several emails, a phone call and a letter to get my money back.<BR><BR>I also warned of the problem on this website and got slammed for being stupid and getting what I deserved. I will probably get it again but maybe this will help other online bookings.

If you log onto thetrainline.com website and click on Order Status at the top of the screen you should see a list of your recent transactions. If you click on more details next to the relevant transaction you should see details of the ticket including the fastticket PIN number

<BR><BR>Thanks to all. Situation still not resolved... but I will call them in the morning. Yes, I do have a &quot;booking number&quot; &amp; I did receive that confirmation email. But no PIN number. Upon calling my credit card company, it seems that thetrainline has only &quot;authorized&quot; a charge for $130 &amp; not yet actually debited it. There must be a foul up somewhere &amp; I will call them first thing tomorrow.<BR><BR>Thanks for the suggestion about mailing them to the hotel. I will send them an email right now to see if that is possible.

Check your confirmation e-mail carefully. After the details of the journey there should be one of three sentences:<BR>'The ticket(s) will be sent to (your address)'<BR>'The ticket(s) will be collected by N at London Euston station on 15 Nov 2002'<BR>'Your ticket(s) will be collected from a FastTicket machine at London Kings Cross station with the PIN Number 85KCHT8X'<BR>What does it say on your e-mail?

<BR>Well...I have found out that my tickets are set up to be mailed to me in the U.S. Which, of course is impossible. Somewhere along the way, during the booking process, I selected to have my tickets mailed. I was aware of this, but I thought that the website would put up a red flag &amp; say that it was impossible to mail them to me &amp; then email me a PIN number. This was not the case. In fact, the website set my tickets to be mailed to Texas, USA, England!!<BR><BR>I sent two emails &amp; got to extremely generic responses. The kind that are probably nothing more than templates. I have since phoned thetrainline, &amp;was told that those tickets are now worthless. No changes can be made. They can't even mail them to another address!<BR><BR>My only option is to request a refund. I will only get 50% back. I must mail a copy of my credit card statement! I must purchase another set of tickets (if I still want to travel)<BR><BR>So...bottom line. Only use thetrainline.com if you live in England or can have your tickets mailed to an address in England. I am checking into mailing them to my hotel.<BR><BR>My experience with thetrainline.com has been sub-par.

Chris: &quot;Somewhere along the way, during the booking process, I selected to have my tickets mailed.&quot; I am sorry your tickets are lost in the process, but you have only yourself to blame. You apparently knew you could not have them sent but selected that anyway. You can't very well blame trainline for your own mistake. Don't let this ruin your trip, but maybe you should be more careful in future.

Hello, exactly my same experience. I had several times in the past picked up tickets at the station and did not realize things had changed. I put down pick up at Paddington Station and then realized it said mail to paddington station which would not work. I immediately called to cancel and try to get them sent to my hotel. Like you I got absolutely no help and when I posted here to warn others was told it was all my fault. It is not clear on the website and the website states if you need to change a reservation or need other assistance you can call a customer service number. When you call they say there is absolutely nothing that they can do. Just be happy to buy another ticket and get some of your money refunded at a much later date. I know there is absolutely no way that my purchase had been ticketed or mailed as I called within 3 minutes of the booking. I hope this will at least warn others to be very careful when booking with trainline. Also, this is a big change for the worse from how trainline used to function.

Hi,<BR><BR>Another website for purchasing rail tickets in the uk is www.qjump.co.uk. Like thetrainline.com they can't mail tickets overseas, but maybe their website is better designed and prevents non-UK addresses from being inserted? <BR><BR>I've done some web programing in my time and it's very easy to prevent a non-UK address from being entered. I think this is a failure on the part of thetrainline.com.

<BR>Amazing...truly amazing.<BR>I walk out to my mailbox today &amp; what do I find?? My train tickets that &quot;could not be shipped outside the UK&quot; !! This is the craziest thing I have ever seen. The envelope was addressed as such:<BR><BR>Mr. &quot;me&quot;<BR>&quot;my street address&quot;<BR>&quot;my city&quot;<BR>Texas<BR>USA<BR>England<BR><BR>Perha ps this &quot;tricked&quot; the website. I do not know. But the people at customer service were just as clueless.<BR><BR>I assume eventually the other tickets that I purchased (after I was told that my first ones were useless) will be mailed to my hotel &amp; then I will have twice as many tickets as I require.<BR><BR>Anybody need train tickets from London to Chesterifeld? I will give you a good deal.