Tourists & Irish Rails Great Big Rip Off!

Jamie2k9

After witnessing two US visitors having to pay a grand total of €99.20 for a return trip between Dublin and Kilkenny yesterday, I got thinking about the complete lack of information on Irish Rail fares and complete lack of promotions for visitors. Rip off Ireland alive and well :rolleyes:

The only offers Irish Rail have are completely unfit for purpose and usage can't be massive as nobody knows about them.
http://www.irishrail.ie/fares-and-tickets/tickets-explained#type-tourist

The major problems:
1 - Lack of engagement of staff on advising different ticket options available and uninterested approach to their job. They will just about grunt at a passenger who comes to the booth. Note this is not all staff as I generally think Connolly staff are a little more people friendly and helpful compared to Heuston.
2 - No marketing of online fares to to Hotels/Hostels/Tourist Offive in Dublin to advise passengers to book online to get cheap fares.
3 - No special fares available from ticket offices. (Irish people have no excuse not to book online)

Anyway the people I meet were visiting Kilkenny and purchased a single ticket, they were not sure if they would be returning today however they had no idea best fares were available online and were not advised that a Day return was only 1.80 extra onto the single ticket. They were screwed out of 47.20 because there was a complete lack of marketing targeted about accommodation locations and i expect a tourist office wouldn't have a clue about fares and where the best values ones are.

Some might say its their fault but the lack of information available is unbelievable and most Irish people get confused by IE and their fare system so how would anybody based outside Ireland know.

Should IE not have some special promotions at the ticket office for passengers such as all IC routes capped at €30 day return, €35 open return etc. Most travel at off peak times so having cheaper fares wouldn't generally impact on services.

If IE actually bothered to promote service and offer good discounts to passengers visiting they would really increase business overall and actually might get a good reputation for being good value. If I am being really honest IE are generally only focusing marketing at existing customers via email, there is nothing else. Eg Irish people have not a clue about family tickets available at the stations.

Time to get staff who can do a job as any person employed in marketing at the company cannot possibly justify there positions. This year we had a few weeks of a 9.99 fare promotion, nothing else meaningful.

Its the summer holidays and family offers should be advertised but no IE don't think so....

Anybody else agree?

mickydoomsux

Did they actually ask about the different ticketing options before they purchased their tickets?

Generally, asking questions about things leads to obtaining information about those things.

goingnowhere

They paid the standard walk up fare.

If they booked a return online for same day travel, its the same price as booking office return tickets.

So no one was ripped off, what failed here is the tourists did not prepare. The cheapest fare for the journey requested was sold.

Throw irish trains, trains in ireland into google, amazingly you get irishrail.ie back as first choice. No excuses

Judgement Day

Jamie2k9 - I'm puzzled, this is what I've been saying since the late 1970s but you normally support CIE/IE in everything they do or at least that's the impression I've always got from your posts - road to Damascus?

LXFlyer

To suggest that there is no information available on fares is stretching things a bit.

Clicking onto this page and selecting the appropriate route you can get information on all of the booking office fares available for each route, including DART and Commuter services.

That being said, people should be advised of the various ticketing options available at a booking office, unless they specifically ask for a particular ticket.

Jamie2k9

goingnowhere wrote: »

They paid the standard walk up fare.

If they booked a return online for same day travel, its the same price as booking office return tickets.

So no one was ripped off, what failed here is the tourists did not prepare. The cheapest fare for the journey requested was sold.

Throw irish trains, trains in ireland into google, amazingly you get irishrail.ie back as first choice. No excuses

They could of prepared had they knows, there is little information available. The website leaves a lot to be desired in terms of easy to access information. They said they had no idea that online was required to get those fares on the JP.

Dublin Bus have a large office on O'Connell St where you see lots of tourists going in/out and obtaining information about bus services. Now I am not saying IE should do the same however they could provide better information to tourism offices to give advise. Leaflets with information go along way. Any hotel have leaflets and maps available, so why can't IE be bothered doing the same?

Sure I know that CIE companies working together would be completely out of the question at this location

Jamie2k9 - I'm puzzled, this is what I've been saying since the late 1970s but you normally support CIE/IE in everything they do or at least that's the impression I've always got from your posts - road to Damascus?

JD

I do not support them all of the time however most people like to jump on the bandwagon and suggest everything single thing no matter how small when it may not be.

They paid the standard walk up fare.

If they booked a return online for same day travel, its the same price as booking office return tickets.

So no one was ripped off, what failed here is the tourists did not prepare. The cheapest fare for the journey requested was sold.

Throw irish trains, trains in ireland into google, amazingly you get irishrail.ie back as first choice. No excuses

Its not quiet as easy, IE website is not user friendly and it shows online fares but no where in the journey planner does it suggest there fares are only available online and so on.

To suggest that there is no information available on fares is stretching things a bit.

Clicking onto this page and selecting the appropriate route you can get information on all of the booking office fares available for each route, including DART and Commuter services.

Fair enough but more information and they should be given more flexibility and capped fares. What IE charge for services is outrageous for the actual service provided.

Now these people were not to bothered about the price they payed but they had very little information after checking the journey planner and just assumed those fares would be available. Why would they need to check other areas of the website?

Anyway back to the general lack of marketing and if you say the word "train" to any Irish person what is the response you get....."to dear" when its actually not once you are clued in about how it all works....

In Germany you have, Unlimited Day Ticket for Regional Trains and the pricing structure is €44 for 1 Adult, €52 for 2 Adults (26 each) and the more passengers the better value. Now its not limited to tourists but it could be here. Yet here it still costs more for a day return to Cork for 1 passenger.

Just back to the family tickets here, while slightly costly for a day return, IE can't help themselves but get greedy and slap an up to €64 onto the tickets for returning at another date. By all means have a extra charge but it should be limited to €20/25 on all routes. Like what family would be prepared to pay 138 for 4 people and an open return to Sligo

cgcsb

That's a bit silly in all fairness, what you are saying is that they were charged €49.60 each for a walk in return fare for an intercity journey. That is reasonable, a bit above the European average for such a journey perhaps. But again you can easily google these things, which I frequently do before I travel, and I presume that most other people are capable of doing same.

purplepanda

lxflyer wrote: »

To suggest that there is no information available on fares is stretching things a bit.

Clicking onto this page and selecting the appropriate route you can get information on all of the booking office fares available for each route, including DART and Commuter services.

Selecting the Waterford route / stations and requesting the fares from Claremorris for example comes up with no information. Same as Claremorris to Thurles a week or so ago.

How are potential passengers supposed to find out information when the IE website is so hard to find travel information on? :mad:

They could always visit the Platform11 website I suppose? :pac:

LXFlyer

purplepanda wrote: »

Selecting the Waterford route / stations and requesting the fares from Claremorris for example comes up with no information. Same as Claremorris to Thurles a week or so ago.

How are potential passengers supposed to find out information when the IE website is so hard to find travel information on? :mad:

They could always visit the Platform11 website I suppose? :pac:

But how many people are making cross-route trips like that?

Very few in the greater scheme of things. Claremorris to Thurles is not exactly a common journey that someone would make.

You can put it into the journey planner and that will give you the fare or call the local station.

The point is that the majority of fares are covered on that page.

Judgement Day

Perhaps the company could reinvent the wheel - again - and introduce an Inter-City printed timetable. :rolleyes:

end of the road

lxflyer wrote: »

But how many people are making cross-route trips like that?

Very few in the greater scheme of things. Claremorris to Thurles is not exactly a common journey that someone would make.

You can put it into the journey planner and that will give you the fare or call the local station.

The point is that the majority of fares are covered on that page.

doesn't matter whether the journey is common or not, people should be able to get a quote as easy as possible, the website needs to be more user friendly, you and me able to work it but the average customer may not

Jamie2k9

lxflyer wrote: »

But how many people are making cross-route trips like that?

Very few in the greater scheme of things. Claremorris to Thurles is not exactly a common journey that someone would make.

You can put it into the journey planner and that will give you the fare or call the local station.

The point is that the majority of fares are covered on that page.

The real problem is IE are always "allegedly" working on making cross route fares available online so clearly there is some demand.

LXFlyer

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

The real problem is IE are always "allegedly" working on making cross route fares available online so clearly there is some demand.

Yeah, but in the context of the vast majority of journeys, the information IS there - the numbers of those trips are miniscule by comparison to route specific trips, and the information can be got for the price of a local call to the nearest station.

I suspect that there are far bigger and more important issues to sort out.

goingnowhere

Or you can get them here http://www.railusers.ie/passenger_info/fare_calc.php

Irish Rail's problem is that they know the cross route fares, but if booking online they can't yet handle a sum of online discounts which would result in a lower fare particularly in the single ticket case

Judgement Day

lxflyer wrote: »

Yeah, but in the context of the vast majority of journeys, the information IS there - the numbers of those trips are miniscule by comparison to route specific trips, and the information can be got for the price of a local call to the nearest station.

I suspect that there are far bigger and more important issues to sort out.

This is always the answer put forward by CIE and their apologists; the trouble is that no issues are ever properly addressed by CIE as they stagger from one crisis to the next.

LXFlyer

Judgement Day wrote: »

This is always the answer put forward by CIE and their apologists; the trouble is that no issues are ever properly addressed by CIE as they stagger from one crisis to the next.

I'm not saying it should not be addressed - the fare finder needs to be completed to enable every possible station combination, but that's a lot of combinations.

I would have seen the main priority as getting the route by route fares online.

We didn't have that until late last year and that is a huge improvement on the previously available information.

But I'd prefer to see a focus on getting the basic information available online and for it to be easily.

To be fair there have significant improvements in the level of information available since this time last year.

Hilly Bill

end of the road wrote: »

doesn't matter whether the journey is common or not, people should be able to get a quote as easy as possible, the website needs to be more user friendly, you and me able to work it but the average customer may not

You could give simple instructions and some will still have problems.

This is the type of people that travel " Do you know that train to Belfast? Does it stop in Belfast?" a person standing by a main door with a gale blowing in asking how to get outside.

MGWR

mickydoomsux wrote: »

Did they actually ask about the different ticketing options before they purchased their tickets?

Generally, asking questions about things leads to obtaining information about those things.

It can also lead to being deceived instead of receiving the right information. One cannot presume total honesty or total lack of bigotry on the agents' part.

mickydoomsux

MGWR wrote: »

It can also lead to being deceived instead of receiving the right information. One cannot presume total honesty or total lack of bigotry on the agents' part.

That's a fairly serious accusation.

Got anything to back it up?

Jamie2k9

lxflyer wrote: »

Yeah, but in the context of the vast majority of journeys, the information IS there - the numbers of those trips are miniscule by comparison to route specific trips, and the information can be got for the price of a local call to the nearest station.

I suspect that there are far bigger and more important issues to sort out.

Correction information can be obtained if staff actually answer a phone, its not easy to contact IE at times and the prices are way above any fare that would remotely appeal to the public overall.

The numbers are much bigger than you may think, anywhere up to 20 people during collage terms transfer between Waterford and Galway/Limerick routes yet two separate tickets are required....and that is just 1 service

No where on the JP does it suggest they are the best fares and are not available at the station. I have saw Irish people turn up to the station to forced to pay the full amount.

Now if you cannot book attractive online fares for cross routes then the cheaper fares should be available from stations.

Did they actually ask about the different ticketing options before they purchased their tickets?

Generally, asking questions about things leads to obtaining information about those things.

I'm not saying they were completely in the right however information out of IE doesn't come easy at times and IE couldn't defend this as they know customer service is a problem (possibly the biggest passenger issue) in the company. Not referring to all staff but some.