End of booking and credit card fees

[Mark Gleeson]

Good news Irish Rail will shortly withdraw all booking fees and credit card charges

This is as a result of recommendations arising out of the recent fares review

[Thomas Ralph]

Good development. It's crackers having the fees especially for walk-up tickets when you can avoid the fee in person at a station taking up more staff time.

[Inniskeen]

Originally Posted by Thomas Ralph

Good development. It's crackers having the fees especially for walk-up tickets when you can avoid the fee in person at a station taking up more staff time.

Last walk up ticket I bought (Saturday 28th) had €2 added to the fare - I was a little surprised but thought I had missed a policy change in the period since I previously bought a walk up ticket.

Was I charged in error ?

[Thomas Ralph]

Buying a walk-up ticket online carries a €2 or €3 fee. I am not aware of a surcharge being applied at stations.

[on the move]

So will the amount be added to the original seat price? If so, while it is good news in a way, it doesn't make much difference, they'll just find another way of applying the fare.

Heard Tina Leonard on PK show recently, say that these card charges will be made illegal by Brussels soon on competition grounds. She was talking about airlines, but I can only assume it will apply across all transport modes also.

[Mark Gleeson]

Technically the charge is legal if it can be shown to represent the true cost of the transaction and booking is an extra service not offered at the booking office window (contradiction there)

The charges will be removed and the max fare online will never be more than an open single/return

Note Dublin Cork return online is 74, open return is currently 77

[Thomas Ralph]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

Technically the charge is legal if it can be shown to represent the true cost of the transaction and booking is an extra service not offered at the booking office window (contradiction there)

It's legal to charge whatever credit card fee you like in Ireland, true cost or not.

[Mark Gleeson]

The NTA report actually was willing to allow a credit card charge but not a booking fee.

[Thomas Ralph]

Both of them are bloody silly. Encouraging booking online saves time.

Now the real question is what happens when the booking reference number space runs out; I think they're less than a million bookings away.

[Mark Gleeson]

Not a problem, an extra digit will appear, the TVM's allow you to enter a least two digits more than the current max length, the first three digits are the security sequence unrelated to the booking reference

[Colm Moore]

Originally Posted by Thomas Ralph

Now the real question is what happens when the booking reference number space runs out; I think they're less than a million bookings away.

Re-use the number of those that have been collected.

[Eddie]

What happened to the proposed removal of these transaction and credit card fees?

One year one and they're still there.

[Mark Gleeson]

Its coming very soon, got further details in last 24 hours.

[Roseanne]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

Its coming very soon, got further details in last 24 hours.

Is there any news of these charges going away, hopefully before I go over in June? I checked some prices just there and there was a credit card/booking fee noted alongside the price of the ticket.

[joey]

no change

[Jamie2k9]

Barry Kenny said last week that the fees are going this summer. Some sort of EU law coming.

[Thomas Ralph]

It's getting laughable at this stage