eurotunnel frequent travellers - more hassles!

[Fay]

I have been told by a real live person at Eurotunnel Folkestone that 'valued' Frequent Travellers are now expected to come into the terminal to show their passports, as the system is being abused by people lending their booking number/credit card to others not in the scheme.

This is apparently why FT customers are finding their booking ref and/or card not recognised by the self-check-in machines. It's a nonsense in every way, since you have to have checked in to get into the terminal!

As I often travel just me and the cat, I do my best to arrive in time just to roll aboard the train. I can't leave her in the car while I shlep indoors to prove who I am.

I'll just have to join the line for the staffed check-ins next time, so that I can show my passport from the car if asked to do so. Crazy.

[BJSLIV]

Unfortunately if people have been abusing the scheme other people will suffer.

I suppose the only other solution will be to make all such bookings pass through the staffed tolls. In which case of visit too the loo and the inside desk is probably preferable.

 

[Anton Redman]

What is abusing the scheme ? - If you write a deal so good too many people take it up and you loose money because too many people take it up then you wrote a poor deal in the first place.  The Hoover debacle over flights to the USA is an example. If you write the deal so you make money when people travel with you who would have otherwise have used P & O, Speed ferries or bought an Amphicar that was what you were trying to do.

 

[BJSLIV]

What is abusing the scheme ?

I thought the first post had already mentioned what Eurotunnel have seemingly detected as abuse, ie using Frequent Traveller tickets when the named passenger (the original purchaser) was not present. The FT scheme predates the automatic check-ins, and obviously some people are prepared to lend their credit cards to friends in order to fool the automatic system.I suppose the other enforecement option that I hadn't mentioned would be for the scheme to be withdrawn altogether, then folk would really suffer for other's selfishness.

[chrisb]

We've made two return visits in the last few weeks with FT tickets and haven't had this hbappen to us. Perhaps it's only a proportion that are being asked to 'prove' themselves.

However, I too am a bit worried about the prospect of cars being allowed through into the terminal without being properly booked in first.

One thing I did notice last week was that there were so many 'helpers' at check-in on the French side that they might just as well have had the booths open. Perhaps they get paid less than a 'proper' check-in assistant. Several of them were young Belgians and so keen to 'help' that they were practically pouncing on you as you drove up to the barrier.

It wasn't that long ago that we had reserved parking spaces and a free coffee for the FT customers - I suppose they realised that we didn't need this inducement to buy cheap travel.

[Loiseau]

I've just travelled as an FT from England to France and back (out Fri, back Mon) and was not asked to prove my identity in any way other than using the automatic check-in.

Angela

[Russethouse]

Couldn't it just be a security measure ?

[Fay]

It's a mystery - it has happened to me over and over again! Now I'm feeling picked on... No-one at Eurotunnel head office can explain it or even knows about what the person on the Info desk at Folkestone told me. It's my second batch of FT tickets and it never happened with the first lot. Maybe it won't with the next. We shall see in due course.

[Loiseau]

Is it something to do with the fact that you are transporting an animal, I wonder?

Either that, or you have a white van...   [;-)]

Angela

[Anton Redman]

[quote user="BJSLIV"]

What is abusing the scheme ?

I thought the first post had already mentioned what Eurotunnel have seemingly detected as abuse, ie using Frequent Traveller tickets when the named passenger (the original purchaser) was not present. The FT scheme predates the automatic check-ins, and obviously some people are prepared to lend their credit cards to friends in order to fool the automatic system.I suppose the other enforecement option that I hadn't mentioned would be for the scheme to be withdrawn altogether, then folk would really suffer for other's selfishness.

[/quote]

Clearly you do not understand the point. They are not doing you any favours they are trying to sell tickets and are now so brain dead that they do not understand or have forgotten their own objective. They are not a charity like the RHS or the National Trust where I would not dream of lending our cards to somebody to else

I might travel with them at their Frequent Traveller rate, it would take Force 9 in the Channel and two day delays before I paid them their rack rate. I have forgotten whether James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause or Marlon Brando in the Wild One when asked "What are you rebelling against?" replied "What have you?" 

[BJSLIV]

[:)]Eurotunnel have experts who decide the best way to maximise their revenues, and they apparently believe that the Speedferries/Ryanair model is not for them. Whatever the rights or wrongs of this pricing policy, they have decided , in their commercial wisdom, to sell tickets at a discount to individuals who travels frequently blocks of tickets exclusively for their own use . From Eurotunnels position anyone who lets other people use the tickets is by definition abusing the rules of the scheme.

They presumably don't want the illicit retailing of the these tickets to occasional travellers undermining full price sales. 

I don't really see the relevance of the National Trust or the RHS arguement , unless you are suggesting that theft from a charity is wrong whereas similar actions against a profit seeking company have some kind of Robin Hood overtones. [:)]

Whether Eurotunnels pricing policy is totally misguided now thats another matter altogether.................

[Pierre ZFP]

Its strange that the original policy of Eurotunnel was to provide a 'Turn up and Go' service with no pre-booking etc just one cheap(Ha!) fare for all because they were to be a 'continuous' service rather than 'batch' with a load of vehicles on a boat every couple of hours.  That's why they have spare capacity and large holding spaces to cope with fluctuations in demand.  Of course this changed before the tunnel even opened because most of Joe Travelling Public wants a ticket in their hand before they take their annual (or even first) trip.  This makes sense as if it were 'turn up an go' and on the day of the big Holiday it was 'turn up and don't go' then you have no recourse to anybody and for lots of people, waiting for the next day (or many weeks in the case of the fire) is not an option.  At least if you have a ticket you stand a chance of being put on a boat.  Having said all that I think the current Eurotunnel management has got it all wrong as shown by them having to mothball part of the train fleet.  While I'm not advocating the Ryanair model, I think they could do a lot better along the lines of a flat rate fare rather than rip off on school hols and popular times and single fares.  Is it me or are the numbers travelling under, rather than over, the channel far fewer than in previous years?

[Alane]

The numbers are down without a doubt. The trains run less frequently and are rarely full. The only exception seems to be bank hols and sunday evenings in the summer - when they still don't run a full service.

I've suggested to them on several occasions that they go back to the turn up and go model - if their forecasting was any good they'd be able to shift people quickly on bank holidays anyway if they run the 4 shuttles per hour they used to at busy times. It's very rare not to be able to book a ticket right up to the last minute even at bank holidays so why the belief that too many people might turn up?

My experience is that the booking service is a bit of a waste of time anyway. If the shuttle isn't busy then I may have to wait for the booked shuttle and if it's busy and I turn up on time it is rare to actually get on the booked shuttle because they are so poor at getting passengers quickly from arrival to the shuttle loading area. The self service check in has made things worse at busy times and it isn't uncommon to queue for 20 or 30 minutes before even getting to the booth. Time and again I've been held up by passengers who are making a fuss because they've arrived either early or late and the auto check in has allocated a shuttle time they don't like.

 They always say that they know their own business best but they must have significant costs to cover for the booking service when they could just swipe a credit card at check in and charge a fixed fee.

[Anton Redman]

If I buy ten cases of wine from my wine merchant at a reduced price she does not stand over me to ensure that I drink all of them myself.  I can drink them give them to friends, drink them at a party or do what I like with them. She is happy that I have purchased them and therefore will be buying less from Geant Tescos or Whoever.

 

Some years ago I worked in Vienna for a few months. At that time British Airways allowed you discounted return fares provided you spent Saturday night away.  Broadly a return fare was only marginally more expensive than a single provided you spent Saturday night away. In common with lots of people I booked a six month return from the UK and for intermediate trips home purchased my tickets in Vienna. I travelled home more than I would have done had I been paying full price and probably overall spent more than I would have any way.

 

For years of travelling in Africa I filled in Visa applications and entry forms describing my grandfather’s occupation as Cordwainer rather than ‘Four Loom Weaver’ and invented the date of my parents marriage (never found time to ask them).

 

To quote Thomas Armstrong ‘Take what you want and pay for it’ but if somebody is foolish enough to hedge the purchase of anything with stupid rules then the best of luck to anybody who works out a way round them. I have never stolen anything from anybody but it would be a very damaged person who stood between anything I had paid for and me.

 

I also find the mealy mouthed apologised for Euro Tunnel rather depressing. If they could make tea in a French toilet or to complete the spoonerism run a piss up in a brewery they would not have been broke quite so often.

[BJSLIV]

Designing a revenue maximising policy for Eurotunnel is probably beyond my capabilities. The only point I was making in my original post was that Eurotunnel are entitled to enforce the rules in their conditions of sale.

The registered Frequent Traveller will be given an Account Number and password, which is personal to the Frequent Traveller and must not be disclosed to any other party. The registered Frequent Traveller must travel on all bookings made using the Account. (Their emphasis)

We have all played games with tickets especially rail fares with their before 9:30, not on a Friday...............just like your Vienna dodge.

But the difference is that they were all games within the rules as published.

Now if someone was to set up a business chaperoning people backwards and forwards through the tunnel, that would be within the rules! Anyone live near to Folkestone?

[Cjlaws]

[quote user="BJSLIV"]

[:)]Eurotunnel have experts who decide the best way to maximise their revenues, and they apparently believe that the Speedferries/Ryanair model is not for them. Whatever the rights or wrongs of this pricing policy, they have decided , in their commercial wisdom, to sell tickets at a discount to individuals who travels frequently blocks of tickets exclusively for their own use . From Eurotunnels position anyone who lets other people use the tickets is by definition abusing the rules of the scheme.

They presumably don't want the illicit retailing of the these tickets to occasional travellers undermining full price sales. 

I don't really see the relevance of the National Trust or the RHS arguement , unless you are suggesting that theft from a charity is wrong whereas similar actions against a profit seeking company have some kind of Robin Hood overtones. [:)]

Whether Eurotunnels pricing policy is totally misguided now thats another matter altogether.................

[/quote]

And Eurotunnel is bankrupt. End of story.

 

[BJSLIV]

As many studies have shown Eurotunnel would be bankrupt whatever ticketing model it had adopted. It was doomed from day one being conceived as a construction project pure and simple. The share and bondholders paid through the nose to build the tunnel and the construction companies made a very nice profit and promptly left the building.

What was left was a hopelessly endebted structure with no chance of meeting its obligations.  Richard Stelios O'Leary himself couldn't dig himself out of that mess. All they can do is try to maximise the difference between income and costs, hence the recent scaling back of both shuttles and staff numbers.

[Chancer]

Just returned from a brief trip in the UK on a reasonably cheap 2 day ticket, I had to wait 2/12 hours for the return train.

They claimed that there had been an earlier signalling failure (who knows) but of the people who were allocated a boarding number for the 13.00 train nearly 50% were unable to board for reasons never disclosed, the next train 13.36 didn't run at all and so the "bumped travellers had to wait an hour and in turn bumped others.

I must be missing soemthing here! I realise that say Speedferries cannot magic up another boat if they are running behind schedule but the tunnel has 10 or 12 platforms and capacity for 4 trains per hour, why are they running only one train an hour (and that 1/2 full) when they have a huge backlog of delayed passengers who have paid the considerable premium for the "fast" service?

[chrisb]

One reason that things are getting worse is undoubtedly the combination of the ageing trains and possibly poor maintenance. We have been delayed three times this year (twice when on board the shuttle once while waiting) by problems with the doors not opening when asked. And through the hot weather it was unpleasantly obvious that the air conditioning on a good proportion of the coaches just doesn't function any more.

Any delays that do occur are invariably made worse by the lower staffing levels - it has been obvious on occasions that boarding has started far too late for all the waiting queues to get on board - which of course leads to knock on problems for the following departure. The low staffing levels have also on occasion led to a sort of free-for-all in the waiting area as people decide to swap lanes for one that they think is better.

All that said - I still rate the tunnel as my preferred crossing and am quite happy that the point of the "frequent Travellers" discount is for people who use the service frequently to get a discount for their own use - not to pass it on to somebody else.

 

[Jupiter]

AntonRedman

Solid good sense, thank you.

We don't have to take this sort of thing from the tunnel operators as long as there are good ferry services at competitive prices. Let's support them instead.

[bixy]

BJSLIV you've got it absolutely right. Eurotunnel never stood a chance with the amount of debt they were saddled with. It's a tragedy. It's certainly the easiest/quickest way to cross the channel and if the project had been financed by the EU with only the running costs to be paid for by passengers, we would be paying something like £15 per crossing. Nearly all of your ticket price goes straight to the banks in debt repayment. It's going to get worse. In a few weeks time all the rail freight will be withdrawn, resulting in a further loss of income. Unless the banks are prepared to write off a huge part of the debt then Eurotunnel does not stand a chance. Theoretically next year could see closure. Surely the banks and the British and French governments could not be that stupid, could they?.......

Patrick

[Alane]

If the project had been financed by the EU then people who never use the tunnel would have been underwriting the travel and transport costs of those who do. Whatever the arguments about the tunnel the fact is that the ferries provided a good service before the tunnel existed and continue to do so. There was no strategic need for a tunnel and the UK government agreed to its construction on the basis that it was privately funded. Investors had a choice as to whether to invest or not- which would not have been the case if taxpayers had footed the bill. When I last checked I didn't have the option of not paying taxes unless I wanted a close ongoing relationship with the tax man.

The original estimates were of course way undercooked and the investors got burnt. The other way of looking at this is that a wonderful civil engineering asset was created that can be used by all. Forget the Millau bridge - this was a truly fantastic achievement it's just a shame that as it's underground it doesn't look so impressive. It won't close down, it will just change ownership and will continue to operate. Whether a management team appointed by the banks will be better than the current crew is a matter that only time will tell. I remain of the opinion that the current management have got it wrong and would be better operating a turn up and go service as all my bad experiences are related to the operation of the tunnel as a service for which tickets must be booked. But then, I'm just a regular customer who doesn't have to juggle with conflicting demands that go with operating a major transport operation, so what would I know anyway.

[Chancer]

Debt repayment aside (easy to say!) the tunnel as originally concieved (turn up and travel) would easily have the lowest operating costs and the most flexibility. It can travel in any weather conditions and can add or substract trains according to demand.

If it were to operate in this (the originally conceived) way, without debt, most of the other operators would fail so perhaps there is some reason in continuing to repay the debts; after all the other operators will not have anyone to bail them out.

However in my opinion to mothball the trains and operate in the same way as the ferries is plain stupidity and ignoring their own competitive advantage.

Good luck to whoever the new management are, just so long as Branson does not get involved!

[bixy]

I'm afraid Alane's argument doesn't stand up. Should people who don't use motorways not pay their tax towards them? What about people who don't have children, should they withhold the part of their taxes that pays for education? The channel tunnel was a classic case of a project that should have been state funded - just like motorways and all the other infrastructure that everybody uses at one time or another. Even if you never take your car through the tunnel, goods which you buy have come through it on the back of lorries. I thought the old Thatcherite argument about "no such thing as society "- only pay for what we use, had been laid to rest.

Even if there were no ideological argument for the chunnel being state funded there would be a practical reason since governments can borrow money at lower rates of interest, thus reducing the debt mountain. Even 1% reduction on several billion over twenty years makes a whoping difference.

It doesn't matter how many times you change the management or what fares you charge, Eurotunnel will never be able to pay off its debts, let alone start reducing the principal. The debt has to be reduced. All the rest is woolly thinking.

Patrick

[Alane]

Bixy

The woolly thinking here is not considering if the tunnel is a part of the strategic infrastructure or not.

"Even if you never take your car through the tunnel, goods which you buy have come through it on the back of lorries." - They don't have to. The ferries did and continue to do a perfectly adequate job even in bad weather. Ferries have been withdrawn from the route because the Tunnel created over capacity.

The country needs motorways because the A roads can't do the job, we need education because it is essential to the development of a stable and competitive economy. We need hospitals and a defence force. We never needed a Channel Tunnel and it would have been wrong to spend state funds on it which could have been better spent elsewhere on the other assets you have described. It has nothing to do with Society or Thatcherite thinking.

You are correct in saying that the government can borrow money cheaper than business but the logical extension of that argument is that all major projects are state funded. Remember this wasn't a UK project but a joint French/UK job.  The goverments may or may not have made a better job of the construction project but I have my doubts and suspect that the costs would have been far higher - look at Concorde as an example of French/UK joint project - a superb product but years late and over cost.

What will happen if the current management cannot reach a deal is that the debts of the tunnel will be reduced because the shareholders will lose out and/or the banks will write off part of their debts. The deal proposed earlier this year offered reduction in the debt level to a level at which the current management believed the tunnel could support - whether or not they do reach agreement it is really just an argument about whether the banks or the investors lose their cash.

I hope they do reach agreement as I feel for the staff who continue to be helpful and courteous through what must be an extremely stressful time for them but given the apparent brinkmanship going on it has to be a close call. I'll be using the tunnel this weekend so hope they don't go bust today.