To not have been aware that you can't change the time of travel on an e-ticket?

[NotAHappyBunny6]

I've bought advance train tickets from Virgin Trains on many occasions and a couple of times I've had to change my time of travel -which costs you a £10 admin fee (plus the price difference if it's a more expensive ticket).

This time, I bought my advance tickets (knowing that there was a possibility I might want to change the time of my outward journey) and at the end of the process it now has e-tickets as the automatic selection for method of delivery, lists it as the recommended option, with a list of the advantages of doing so and then further information on how it works in practice. There are no other links provided in this section with any further details about any differences between this and paper tickets.

Once you have bought the ticket however, you are informed that, unlike paper tickets, e-tickets are non-refundable and if you want to change your time of travel you just have to pay full price for a new ticket.

AIBU to not have known this and AIBU to think Virgin should state this on the page where you select the type of ticket you want because the page purports to list the pro's and cons and practicalities of these types of tickets but misses off one very important one ie that for the same price you are getting a much worse deal if you get an e-ticket and could end up significantly worse off if you need to change your time of travel?

Are you sure it's because it's an e-ticket? On the Virgin booking site when you choose the ticket/time it says "Specified train only. No refunds" for all advance tickets.

All Advance tickets are not changeable or refundable.

Have lost a fair bit of money over the years too.

When booking train tickets, there are such a mixture of different prices, it's hard to know if you's bought Super Savers, Advance or some other deal.

I am not familiar with virgin’s policies but it wouldn’t surprise me, they also oversell individual trains and I’ve sat on the floor in a few occasions when that’s been the case.

Nothing to do with it being an e ticket. It's in the T&C's when you buy an advance fare that it's non refundable or exchangeable.

I have changed the time of Virgin e-tickets.

It'll be because you bought a cheap advance fare.

I think my question should have been 'AIBU to be the only person who knows that you can change the time and/or date of a (Virgin) advance paper ticket for a £10 admin fee?'

Yes, you can do it. I have done it (and yes, it was definitely an advance ticket, not an anytime ticket that I had just got a reservation with).

I can't seem to link directly to the page but go to this page:

www.virgintrains.co.uk/help-and-contact

There are some search results towards the bottom and (unless the search results are based on things I've previously searched for) the third one is "How can I cancel or change an Advance ticket type?"

You can't get a refund or change your route but you can change the date and time of travel.

Wording:

You can change the date or time of your tickets by logging into My Account. Click "Change date/time" next to the journey you want to change, and follow the steps to select the new time and date.

In addition to paying any difference in ticket cost, there is a rail industry standard £10 admin fee per ticket amended. Also note that you will not be refunded the difference if the new ticket is cheaper. Requests to change the ticket can only be made by the payment card holder of the original booking. E-tickets (self-print) cannot be amended.

This information is something you have to search for in the help pages - In the actual booking process it appears to lay out the differences between paper tickets and e-tickets and suggests you switch to e-tickets as the environmentally-friendly, straightforward option but misses out the most important information about them.

Essentially you are getting a different type of ticket with different terms and conditions if you select 'e-ticket' as your delivery method. There are anytime (and off-peak) tickets, there are normal (paper)advance tickets (where you can easily change your time/date of travel) and then there are these super-rigid advance e-tickets which are the same price as normal advance tickets but have much worse terms and conditions - which they do not state during the booking process.

I think it’s because you have to send the tickets back so they can’t be used and you can’t send e-tickets back so someone could still try and use them

The other thing e-tickets are an absolute nightmare for is if you want to do a break of journey, because they just expire!

I thought it'd be simpler for them to cancel an e-ticket ie make it not 'register' and show as cancelled when it's scanned.

Either way, I think they should state in the booking process that terms and conditions are worse if you opt for an e-ticket.

Thanks for the warning. I could easily have been caught out by this too.