Hi,

I am trying to do something which I thought would be simple but is proving to a be a real pain. I want to buy a ticket for travelling during Christmas, however, it seems that all the web sites I can find rely upon the www.thetrainline.com infrastructure which will not allow you to purchase tickets without a uk billing address which naturally I do not have.

I am assuming that I can some how find a customer service to ring and book over the phone but finding those telephone numbers is a pain.

Does any one know if I can book the tickets online.

I find it incredible that uk rail companies don't think they get people who live outside the uk want to buy rail tickets.

Thanks

Martin

You can buy a ticket, and on the check-out choose the tickets to be collected from the machine in the station. Although not all the stations have them. Depends where you travel...

I buy tickets very often using my Swiss credit card and billing address. the one thing they won't do is send the tickets overseas - which is crap. Actually, the entire website is crap and the timetables are absolute rubbish but I digress.

It is the worst site in the world though.

What you need to do is go to www.BritRail.com. This allows non UK residents to buy tickets or railpasses - the passes at least at a rate lower than that available to those living in the UK. For example, we're travelling over Christmas 1st class for less than the price of 2nd class tickets...

No you don't - it's even crappier than the trainline.com.

OK for intercity or Londonium but try getting from Luton Airport to Market Rasen on a weekend on this site - the actual best option is via Leicester - around 3 hours with 2 changes but this site seems to ignore it. Looks like the underlying timetables are to blame.

Worked for us - buy a BritRail England Flexipass - for 2 days if you just want a return.