Online booking credit card charge increased

[MaryK]

I noticed the charge for credit card bookings has increase from €2 to €3. I spoke to Irish Rail and this came in on 18 Feb and is due to increased charges to Irish Rail from the credit card companies, so they have passed this 50 % increase on to the customers.

[Thomas Ralph]

That's poor form. It means that on a single seat reservation the card charge is 100% of the cost of the booking, whereas the transaction probably costs IÉ no more than 12c.

[Mark Gleeson]

Use laser, zero charge

[drumcondra commuter]

Use laser, zero charge

Everytime I try and use Laser, the server times out on me or I get an unidentified error.

[markpb]

Use laser, zero charge

Assuming you're with a bank which offers laser. Does anyone know what the charges for Visa debit are?

[Mark Gleeson]

Everytime I try and use Laser, the server times out on me or I get an unidentified error.
How many digits in the number and which bank issued it? The tech team are avid readers of this forum if they know the card details they can normally fix the problem. I've never had a problem with my laser card.


Assuming you're with a bank which offers laser. Does anyone know what the charges for Visa debit are?
As far as I know a software fix is going in such that debit cards are not charged

[Thomas Ralph]

As things stand, Visa debit cards are charged €3 as well.

[MaryK]

It just adds another cost to an already very expensive train journey. My company is planning to change thankfully but at present I use contract tickets (€35 each way Cork - Dublin), car parking charge €7 and seat reservation €6 plus credit card charge €3, which brings the weekly trip to Dublin to €86.

Travelling peak I do not have the opportunity to get the cheaper on-line train times but I assume many others who travel for work are in the same situation and pay the same costs I do.

[Thomas Ralph]

You're still (slightly) better off forgetting the contract tickets and booking your journey online. The full price of a return ticket is €71 (outward and return journeys within 5 days) which includes your seat reservation, plus the €3 if you don't have a Laser card, and in the event that you do have occasion to use an off-peak train you'll save more. There are also sometimes day return fares of €51.

[Mark Gleeson]

Most expensive single Cork Dublin online is 36 euro and that includes the reservation

Its 3 euro per transaction not per ticket, so you can book for 6 the card charge is fixed at 3

So worst case cost is
(36+36) => 71 return +3+7 = 81

Fares are 36, 20 or 10 euro single. Many trains are cheaper, even the 5:05 Cork Dublin is 10 euro next Monday

[drumcondra commuter]

How many digits in the number and which bank issued it? The tech team are avid readers of this forum if they know the card details they can normally fix the problem.

Thanks Mark. It's an AIB Maestro Laser and it has 19 digits in the number. The Card Number has seven digits.

[Mark Gleeson]

Thats the problem, its supposed to be 16 digits

Drop the first 3 digits and see what happens, the 4 digit should be a 6, if not we shall see what the team in IE can do the long laser card numbers have been a problem for some time in the system

If you know the date and time you last tried (and failed) that would be helpful as well

[Thomas Ralph]

Laser card numbers can be 16, 18, or 19 digits. My Bank of Ireland one is 19 digits and works fine. The first digit should indeed be a 6.

[Mark Gleeson]

I think its a database issue that the numbers length exceeds a certain parameter