On Monday I booked my train, plane and ferry tickets. To book your bicycle on a plane with Easyjet you go on line, choose your destination then choose your date then add your luggage then add your sports equipment (bicycle) and finally book and pay for your ticket. To book a bicycle place on L&D Ferries you go on line, choose your destination then choose your date then add your vehicle (Bicycle) then book and pay for your ticket. To book a bicycle on a train with Virgin you go on line, choose a booking agent eg: Red Spotted Hanky, choose your destination then choose your date then use a different booking agent because the original one shows the cheapest price as £40.05 and not £12.50 you then go to the trainline and go back to the start and choose your destination, choose your date, choose your time then go through all of the booking procedure but you DO NOT BUY IT. At this stage you phone the Virgin (premium rate) helpline to book your (free) bicycle place, when you eventually get through to Chardeep in India (that's all the info I have on the location. When I asked the guy who he was and what call centre he was in he just said "if you have any problems just tell them it's Chardeep in India, they will know who I am" :) You speak to Chardeep and tell him you want to book a place for your bicycle explaining you are ready to confirm the ticket on line but you haven't bought it yet. "Can you see if a place is available for my bike as I cant travel without it" I say. Chardeep disappears for a few minutes then returns and says "yes a space is available". So you confirm your ticket on the trainline.com and give him the reference number and then he can book you the bicycle place on the same train. Well that's the theory. What actually happened was I confirmed and paid for the non-refundable ticket on the trainline.com and when Chardeep went to book the "available" space the "available" space was "unavailable". "Oh Dear!" I said "what shall we do know Deepman" I said, to which Char replied "You will have to call back in a month when more spaces are available". 31 minutes of phone call to book a free place on the Virgin bicycle (premium rate) helpline resulted in no place for my bicycle at a cost equivalent to 25% of the fare.
I must point out at this stage I perhaps bucked the system accidentally here as I booked my ticket through the thetrainline.com and then phoned the Virgin helpline to book my bicycle place, apparently you can phone the trainline.com to book your bicycle space but it's not mentioned anywhere on the main site and you can't do it online. To be fair to Virgin, thetrainline.com and good ole Chardeep, later in the day Maddy booked her bike place on the Eurostar back from Paris and they have exactly the same system. You can't book the place and your ticket on line in the same transaction, so exactly the same could happen. Why boats and planes which probably carry less bicycles can do it and trains can't, well I will let you work that out. If you travel on trains in the UK it will not come of much as a surprise at all. I should have known that all would not run smoothly when in the Virgin bicycle terms it states: "...our trains have racks for up to 4 bikes or 2 tandems (but not penny farthings)" . What would Thomas think!Publish Post
I must point out at this stage I perhaps bucked the system accidentally here as I booked my ticket through the thetrainline.com and then phoned the Virgin helpline to book my bicycle place, apparently you can phone the trainline.com to book your bicycle space but it's not mentioned anywhere on the main site and you can't do it online. To be fair to Virgin, thetrainline.com and good ole Chardeep, later in the day Maddy booked her bike place on the Eurostar back from Paris and they have exactly the same system. You can't book the place and your ticket on line in the same transaction, so exactly the same could happen. Why boats and planes which probably carry less bicycles can do it and trains can't, well I will let you work that out. If you travel on trains in the UK it will not come of much as a surprise at all. I should have known that all would not run smoothly when in the Virgin bicycle terms it states: "...our trains have racks for up to 4 bikes or 2 tandems (but not penny farthings)" . What would Thomas think!Publish Post
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