In a fit of enthusiasm, I decide to book my rail travel for the Christmas period. That's one return ticket from Norwich-London-Norwich and one single ticket from London to Norwich. Off to One's online ticket service I trot, clutching my credit card in my hot little hand. I go through the silly registration procedure, book my return journey with tickets to be delivered to my parents' Norwich address, and realize I've forgotten to book the single. Back into the system I go. I go through the first few stages, get to the bit about payment address and delivery address, and notice that it's automatically populated both with my Amsterdam address. Well, that's no good: I won't be here to get the tickets. What's more frustrating is that I have no option of going to either London Liverpool Street or Norwich stations to pick up the tickets in person -- I have to have them sent by post so that, presumably, One can sting me for the postage. I change the delivery address to be that of the 'rents, click on to the next page, put in all my credit card details, and hit okay. Feeling a little nervous, I head over to my email account to check what they've sent. My return ticket looks fine; the single ticket is going to be dispatched to Amsterdam. W.T.F?!?!
No problem, there's a call center. I call, explain the problem, and am told that I can't do anything about this. Even though I've only just booked the tickets and they haven't been dispatched, I can't change the delivery address. I can give them the credit card number, I can tell them it was the site's problem, not mine, but none of this makes any difference. That ticket is lost to me. Abandoned because it will not (given the reliability of national postal services) arrive in time. Instead, I have commissioned Dadddy Dumpling to head down to Naar-ich Station tomorrow to buy a replacement ticket, using the vouchers that One sent me the last time they failed to provide trains for a service I'd booked on. If, by a miracle, the original ticket turns up here before next Wednesday, I'll either try to claim a refund or sell it at Liverpool St Station on the day of travel.
Thank goodness it was only a 10 quid ticket; I can afford to lose this. And One can afford to lose my goodwill as a customer, as I have no damn choice on that line but to use them. Until April 2007. As soon as we're back in the UK, we're getting a car. Screw the environment and screw One.
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