Originally Posted by
UKtravelbear
I won’t use the train line because they charge a booking fee and why pay a fee when you can buy for free when booking via a train operator or at a station. They also wanted to charge a collection fee for using a station machine!
Well trainline has to pay a fee to the operator of the ticket machine when you collect the ticket, and they don't own any ticket machines themselves which could receive the fee for dispensing tickets booked elsewhere.
In the past this fee was 40p per booking, so passing the charge onto the customer could be justified if the customer had the option to fulfil as eTicket. Though I believe it is now 0.5% with min 7.5p and max 50p. Although, since trainline charges their additional booking fee anyway, they should absorb any extra costs.
If you disliked a particular train operator, in the past you could cause them to lose money by booking any low value tickets with them and collecting at a machine operated by someone else, or even a ticket office as that used to cost 90p.