Or the management at my local station?
I am travelling to Bradford from London and back on Monday for work. I bought Advance saver tickets about 10 days ago, but today my appointment had to be changed from the morning to the afternoon, so I needed to change the times of my tickets.
Fortunately, before I went to my local station to get the tickets changed, I looked up the policy regarding amendments to Advance tickets on line. It said that provided there were still spaces on the trains to which I wanted to transfer, it is possible to change the time of Advance tickets, for an administration fee of £10.
I got to the ticket office at my local station and explained that I needed to change the tickets. The man behind the counter told me it was not possible. I said it was, and that I had looked it up. He said it was not possible to change, as they were cheap tickets sold in advance. I insisted that the statement of terms on line said it was possible, and quoted to him what I had read.
He then agreed to look up the new train times I wanted. I don't know what he was putting in his computer, but he then told me that there were no possible trains to get me to Bradford at the time I wanted. He said that it was only the train I was booked on (to arrive at 0930) or one arriving at 1355, which was about an hour later than I now need to be there. I expressed my incredulity that there were no trains in between those times, and he turned his computer screen around to 'show' me - although I couldn't make out what the various schedules were actually saying. I said something along the lines of "there must be other trains, let me check", and got out my phone to use my National Rail app. He then had a go at me and said he was not going to serve me whilst I was on my phone.
I kind of ignored him and kept querying why he was saying there were no other trains, by which time I had pulled up the times on my phone, and found one that was perfectly times. Lo and behold, when he put that time into his computer, it confirmed that there was in fact another train.
He seemed to back down then, and made a phone call to someone who clearly talked him through the process of changing the tickets. Eventually it was all sorted, and I got the new tickets that I need.
As I was putting the tickets away, I said, in what I thought was a light tone ok, only slightly pointedly "At least you know for next time that you can change advance tickets". He said "It's not a matter of knowing for next time. They make changes all the time". At which point I just rolled my eyes and walked off.
So, is it worth making a complaint? If I had not been so sure about the policy or about the fact that there were more than about 3 trains a day from London to Bradford, I would probably have ended up being stung for an expensive set of tickets, in addition to the ones I no longer need.