When is “flexible” not as “flexible” as you might think? When you are travelling on an Irish train – as one disgruntled reader from Cork discovered, to his cost.
This disgruntled reader – he specifically asked us to refer to him thus - travelled from Cork to Dublin last month, planned to return home on the 3pm service heading south, and booked his ticket accordingly.
He travelled from Cork without incident, and in Dublin set off from the city centre in plenty of time to make the 3pm train but, as can happen, the gods of traffic had other ideas. Congestion on his route, along with an unfortunate sequence of red traffic lights, meant he arrived at Heuston Station two minutes before his train was due to depart.
In a bit of a flap, he raced through the concourse and arrived at the automated ticket barriers just in time to see his train leave.
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“My ticket was a CityGold fare, which is the highest level of fare available to purchase either online or at station,” he writes.
He says there “have been numerous occasions in the past where something similar has happened, and the train host had kindly allowed me to board the next train”.
He stresses that in the past, if there had not been any seats in the first class carriage that his CityGold ticket gave him access to, he was allowed to make his way to the cheap seats and find a place in which to rest his weary bones.
[ ‘It’s cheaper to drive’: Commuters react to Irish Rail fare risesOpens in new window ]
“This was an example of the customer service that I have always admired about Irish Rail,” he writes. “On every occasion, the train host has been accommodating and polite.”
He wasn’t therefore overly bothered about missing his 3pm train, and made his way to the Brambles cafe on the concourse “to kill 30 mins, before returning to the barrier”.
After the 30 minutes had passed, he went back to the ticket barrier and scanned the QR code on his electronic ticket, but it failed to open the sliding doors.
“A member of staff allowed me through once he reviewed the ticket,” our disgruntled Cork reader continues.
On approaching the CityGold first-class carriage on platform 4, happy that he was finally on his way home – albeit an hour later than he had planned – he met another Irish Rail staff member, after which things started to go, you could say, off the rails.
Our reader, a very regular train user, did not recognise this Irish Rail staff member as a regular train host. He explained to her that he “had been unfortunate to miss the 3pm service by a minute, and that I had hoped to catch the 4pm instead”.
She was not having it, however, and he describes her attitude as “cold and uncaring throughout the interaction”.
She looked at the QR code on our reader’s phone and told him that he had “no valid ticket, and would need to purchase a new ticket from the ticket office. She also asked me how I had gotten through the barrier.”
Our reader says that “as a regular user and ardent supporter of the Dublin-Cork service, I was somewhat taken aback by the attitude of this staff member”.
He made the point that there was a significant precedent for CityGold tickets to be used on later services where there was capacity on board, “but she was totally unmoving in her position”.
He says that all the Irish Rail employee kept saying was that the terms and conditions were clear on the website. He says that she basically lectured him on the importance of reading the T&Cs and said “this is what happens when people do not read through the terms and conditions before clicking through”.
Disgruntled from Cork says it was “extremely embarrassing to be denied boarding of the service at the door of the train. I was ordered off the platform like a criminal, rather than a regular train user who happened to miss his train by a minute.”
‘At the point where the staff member threatened to take out her own phone to read me the terms and conditions aloud, I decided that it would be best to purchase a fresh ticket’
— Disgruntled reader
He stresses that he is “not precious about what others might think of me [but] there is something wholly undignified about the way I was treated at the carriage door, in full view of others trying to board first class, and those walking down the platform. The train host, who I know from using the service regularly, seemed embarrassed by the interaction, but said nothing.”
Our reader tried to argue his case but the “supervisor kept telling me that I had to move out of the way of other customers. Had I sat in any other carriage other than the carriage I had booked, I would have boarded the train without issue or embarrassment,” he writes.
“At the point where the staff member threatened to take out her own phone to read me the terms and conditions aloud, I decided that it would be best to purchase a fresh ticket,” he continues.
[ ‘I feel Irish Rail are just running down the time and hoping I will go away’Opens in new window ]
So that is what he did. He paid for a new ticket, handing over the cash to “an extremely polite member of staff, who suggested it might be better to purchase a flexible ticket at the station to avoid a repeat of this situation”.
He says his error lay in “trying to help Irish Rail plan their services by booking online. I have never in all my 30-plus years of using Irish Rail felt compelled to write a complaint. Not when trains have been overcrowded, when services were delayed, or where I have experienced antisocial behaviour. Not once. I have been an ardent supporter in public of Irish Rail and public transport.”
He says all Irish Rail staff in all the stations “comport themselves in a respectful and dignified manner”, and that while he does “appreciate that the terms and conditions are as outlined ... the supervisor’s lack of flexibility, lack of politeness and location of the interaction made a difficult situation much worse. Not to mention the additional cost.”
He is highly critical of what he says is a “puritanical response” that is not in keeping with Irish Rail’s ethos.
He expresses the view that to be refused service at the carriage door “should be the preserve of drunkards, those engaging in antisocial behaviour or those who are barred from travelling”.
He says the experience he had was reminiscent of “what happens in Britain, where rail services are completely inflexible and where an open hostility is paid towards the travelling public. Please tell me Irish Rail is not now following that example.”
Now, we have to say that we were surprised by this story.
Pricewatch is also a long-standing supporter of Irish Rail, and frequently travels on the Dublin-Cork route. We have always found the staff efficient, accommodating and – in a word – sound.
We have also – like our reader – found ourselves missing a train either going from Dublin to Cork or from Cork to Dublin by a matter of minutes – or sometimes we have arrived unexpectedly early and in time to catch an earlier train. There has never been a problem.
We also routinely book the most flexible – and most expensive – tickets online, and until we had spoken to this reader, had always assumed that the “flexible” in the description meant just that, “flexible”.
We did not realise this is not the case, and it was only after hearing this story did it dawn on us that the tickets we buy online are only flexible up to a point – and if we don’t change the time stated on them at least one hour before our scheduled departure - on the first leg of our journey - the travel time is fixed in stone.
Armed with this knowledge, we have now changed how we buy our day return tickets. Instead of buying them online – which is presumably what Irish Rail wants – we buy the day-return ticket in the station on the day of travel. Is a tiny bit dearer, but does give us complete flexibility as to what service we travel on.
After complaining directly to Irish Rail and then to Pricewatch, our disgruntled reader wrote a letter of complaint to Transport For Ireland, and Irish Rail subsequently arranged to refund him for the second ticket and for the €20 upgrade to first class.
‘We would expect customers to always feel they are being addressed in a courteous and respectful manner, and particularly regret that the customer felt this was not the case in this instance’
— Irish Rail
Refund aside, he asked us to highlight his story and find out from Irish Rail whether this is really how it wants to go about its business in future.
We contacted Irish Rail and received the following statement:
“We are sorry that this longstanding and regular customer had this negative experience when travelling with us recently, which has been refunded through the NTA.
“It is the case that the terms and conditions of the ticket were correctly applied. However, we would expect customers to always feel they are being addressed in a courteous and respectful manner, and particularly regret that the customer felt this was not the case in this instance.”
The statement added that on the specific points raised, “we do feel that the terms and conditions are expressed clearly in respect of the amendments being available up to 60 minutes in advance of the outward journey. Benefits in advance booking include the ability to secure a seat, and the availability of discounted fares – walk-up open-return fares do not benefit from discounts."
We were intrigued by this response. In our experience, we have never not been able to find a seat on the Dublin-Cork train, and we would imagine that outside of very peak travel times, most users would say the same. But it was the reference, in particular, to “discounts” that caught our eye.
So we went looking.
The price of a “flexible” (but not really flexible) return ticket from Dublin to Cork bought online and in advance is €65.98. The cost of a day return bought in the station, meanwhile, is €66.40, which means the discount that Irish Rail is touting as the reason why you should buy online is a whopping 42 cent, a saving of 0.63 per cent.
We know how we’ll be buying our tickets in the future, anyways.
Are you really citing a discount of 42 cent as a benefit?
