AIBU to think that this brave new world of everything needing to be booked in advance while simultaneously being non refundable is a massive PITA?

[Uptee]

And that it's all down to the internet?

Yeah, it's "easy" to book things online, but it's not always "easy" to turn up for them. Life gets in the way, people get sick, have pressing commitments appear, plans change. And when that happens, easiness goes out of the window. Suddenly it's not so easy, to do anything at all, because none of this ease is really for the convenience of customers. It's just to push cash flow forwards.

Half the time, you have no choice but to book in advance. There are no walk-up tickets. Or, if you're talking walk-up tickets on the train, they're £200. So instead you buy a train ticket for £70 which is still let me remind you a fuck of a lot of money, and even though your journey that you won't make (say for example, because a booking you had as a self employed person got cancelled) is weeks and weeks hence, there is no refund. You might just have well have burnt that bloody money. It's a fucking con.

At least we don't need to pre-book going to the tip, but I had to register my car number plate with the council to be able to use it as they have ANPR cameras there.

Hot air balloon flight, by any chance? I know the problem, I had to rearrange a few times. When we finally did it, the weather was too good - no wind at all, we were becalmed over a large town.

Surely you can book a full price ticket in advance and use it at a different time to get a refund. It's the lower cost tickets that are non refundable. Or has something changed recently?

A sales gimmick. Make it look as if it is scarce. Think of how many advertising slogans have the word “HURRY!!!!” I’m sure they did this with the vaccines, so people would rush out to get them,

It depends what it is for. An any time open return train ticket you can, but the cost of that is much much higher than an advance return and you aren't guaranteed a seat.

My issue with the Trainline is that it often only allows a few minutes for connections if you book a through ticket, and with our hourly and often unreliable local service I end up buying separate tickets for the separate legs of the journey.

@RampantIvy If you miss the connection because the first train is late, you can get on the next train. I checked this out when I was sold a ticket with a 9 minute change at Newcastle and had the thought 'what happens if the first train is late and I miss the connection'.

Long distance trains usually have at least one carriage that is unreserved, so if you find out which one this is and head straight there when getting on the train, it will increase your chance of getting a seat if you don't have a reservation. Otherwise look for reserved seats that should have someone in but don't. Eg if the reservation is for Leeds to London and you get on at Wakefield, chances are that the person with that reservation isn't using it, so it's up for grabs.

You have to pre book a ticket for the science museum in London even though it’s free… they have a bank of computers in there just before the entrance you can use if you haven’t don’t it before you arrive and it infuriates me!

We’re right here! Just let us in!

@Bjorkdidit I asked the same question when I had a 7 minute connection at Derby last year and was told that I would have to buy a new ticket and claim a refund for the missed train. Being risk averse I booked a separate ticket to Derby and another ticket for a later train to Cardiff.

Happily, I discovered that it was cheaper to buy my tickets this way than as a through ticket. I don't think they are being very honest with this splitsave malarky. Also, choosing a different train route can be cheaper. If I had gone via Bristol it would have cost £20 more.

Booking via the rail companies instead of Trainline in this case wasn't any cheaper.

I'm familiar with the free reserved seats. I travel between Huddersfield and Liverpool quite frequently and can often get a seat on a train at Liverpool bound for Newcastle where the seat has been reserved from Leeds, or if the passenger hasn't turned up at all. Sometimes they have just chosen to sit elsewhere on the train.

Are you pissed 😂

Your responses are weird and sometimes, as someone else pointed out, a tad aggressive.

I agree with PP who says they don’t mind booking ahead but I loathe the constant sign ups. I don’t need another account. So many accounts. And why do half of them have secondary security? I want to buy a ticket not start a bank.

Not aggressive at all. It’s precisely the contempt with which business views its “customers”, egged on by the government in 2020, when they normalised this nonsense.

Why “customers” in quotes, might you ask? Note that drivers who get stung by parking fines are referred to as “customers”, and I’m not making that up. A “customer” is the polite name for a cash cow.

A benchmark I sometimes use is: if it takes me more than five minutes to do the online booking, because it’s over-complicated, I don’t do it; and I email them to tell them why.

Lololol system fail!

Yes and embarrassing when with teens trying to log into said apps with queues behind - passwords don’t auto save in some apps and having to log into with scant WiFi or completely forgotten password 🤯

It’s rare that we eat in a restaurant, but there is a local one we like. Last time we wanted to book for six people, they wanted a deposit of £25 per person. That’s £150 before you cross the threshold. I know times are difficult for the hospitality industry, as they are for most people, but we couldn’t justify that amount of money.

I quite often book my train ticket via the app as the train I want to get is pulling in, to make sure I will definitely get on it. This means I can book to cheaper tickets that are for that exact train, they're still available last minute. This is on Greater Anglia and for off peak trains.

Yes! Hot air balloon bought for a special birthday, weather seemed perfect, we were in and out of the basket like jacks in a box, then the pilots deemed it unsafe, zero breeze to us on ground level, now years have passed, kids grown up and nil interest!
how frustrating for you on the other side too, just suspended 🫣

I hate it. We're either rushing because we're worried about missing our time slot, or we're hanging around waiting for it because we're really early.

I miss the relaxing outings of the past, where we could wander down to the railway station, take the next train somewhere, have lunch, then decide what to go and see.

Yes, but they're not cheaper if the train's only half full as you initially said. They remain at the original price.

I'm a millennial. I grew up with the internet becoming a thing. I loved it. I honestly now think it has overall made life worse; Particularly the commodification of absolutely everything.

I agree except where you mention 2020. It was pretty normal long before Covid!

We did a cruise and several European city breaks in 2017/8/9 and virtually everything we wanted to visit/see/tours were pre-booking via internet back then.

Anne Frank house in Amsterdam was particularly annoyingly hard to get admission tickets and I remember getting up early every day for about a month to try to get tickets which were said to be released at 7/7.30 am each morning for approximately 4-6 weeks ahead. There wasn't even a "ticket office" to buy tickets - it was ALL pre-bookable online in advance only.

Same with Park Guell in Barcelona - I had to try over several days to finally get admission tickets.

For both those, there was a steady stream of "walk ups" being turned away because they'd not pre-booked. Neither was particularly busy inside so either they deliberately restricted numbers of tickets available to create artificial high demand (thus higher prices) or lots of pre-booked people couldn't attend at their specified date/time - either way, the attraction is quids in.

Just as annoying is when the website says "pre booked tickets only" but when you get there, after either stressing trying to make it on time or hanging around an hour or two because you got their early than expected, there's a ticket desk open and people ARE buying "walk up" tickets.

This booking in advance has absolutely made my life unbelievably small and so much harder. As someone who cannot tell how ill I will be the next day it means I cannot do anything if it's bookable only. I suffer from several autoimmune conditions and I don't know if I will be able to leave the house or not until a couple of hours before due to sudden fatigue/pain. This means I can't even do a bloody tip run nevermind something enjoyable.

Advanced booking has made me more housebound than my disabilities which is insane.

I had to book a restaurant in San Francisco. They took 45 USD pp deposit! It is equally as bad in here in us and makes everything such a chore. Buying an event ticket is exorbitant, involves downloading a bloody app and if intended as a gift, means the other person downloading said app and also jumping through hoops to get the ticket transferred. I miss the days of turning up somewhere and just paying and being done with it. I missed a play that I wanted to go to because I needed to make an account to buy the ticket and for some reason or other I don’t get the account confirmation code. So after a couple of tries, I give up and move on. So that cost the theater company a ticket. Just extra homework for us all.

@Badbadbunny I know it wasn't entirely due to lockdown (I will not say "covid"); but lockdown certainly accelerated the trend of Everything Booked In Advance. It became an acceptable part of the New Normal, sold as "necessary to keep track of numbers of people". Ditto far more places being cashless.

Related to this is the pressure to review everything.

You already get about five or six emails before booking anything, as part of the "signing up" process. And then, sometimes even before the event is over...

"How was your experience? Leave a review! Review your purchase! Review your courier!"

The word "experience" is also a frightful word from this Brave New World.