aquamarinesteph

Quick question - we have pre-booked seats from London to Manchester and back on Virgin Trains. We already have the tickets in hand. When we were in Germany, you had to validate your ticket prior to boarding. Does Virgin Trains require you to pre-validate, and if so - what should we look for in a machine?

Thank you in advance!

Scots_Al

No, this is not something which happens in the UK.

Ldnn1

Indeed - and is something that often catches Brits out when travelling in Europe as we are not at all used to it.

:D!

As the OP says their tickets are "in hand" there should be no problems.

But if you buy certain UK train tickets via a mobile app, including Virgin Trains app, then you do need to take the separate step of "activating" them before you have a valid ticket.

And some Europeans are caught out when buying UK tickets online as they don't realise they still need to pick them up before travelling.

aquamarinesteph

Thanks so much for all the replies!!! :-)

Sealink

Whatever you do, if you are holding an "Advance" ticket make sure you are on the correct train. There is rarely any leeway for errors.

aquamarinesteph

Duly noted. Thanks!

Kettering Northants QC

In fairness to Virgin I have found them to be one of the more reasonable train companies when you make a genuine mistake. I travel a lot for work on the trains and mistakes happen. A few years back I made a howler of mistake and didn't realise until the ticket check at Euston that my advance ticket home was for the wrong day. My advance ticket wasn't cheap and the guard just wrote some secret code on it to indicate to any ticket inspector that all was well. I've also missed my advanced train by 5 minutes due to traffic and usually they have only charged a very modest fee or waived the fee altogether. I've even lost a return ticket and a few minutes later theyve issued me a free replacement. I suspect the pinch might come if you were trying to travel on a really expensive service with a cheap ticket "due to a mistake" they might play hard ball.

:D!

VTWC has let me travel on an earlier service using an Advance ticket when I turned up 1 hour before my booked train.

VTEC let me travel in 1st class for free when a Scotrail strike meant I had no seat.