Virgin on the ridiculous

Mrs Pat Wright, of Woodhead Road, Burnley, regularly travels to London on business and wanted to take advantage of Virgin's advance ticket operation, but encountered a catalogue of disasters.

First she tried to secure a discount by booking a ticket on the Internet and, after 20 minutes, was quoted £158.

She then tried to organise a ticket by phone, had to wait 12 minutes for connection and found that when the ticket came through it had the wrong time.

When she phoned the complaints line, she had to wait seven minutes to speak to someone.

Mrs Wright then decided to buy her ticket in advance from a manned station. She drove to Accrington, only to find it had closed at 3pm.

A further drive to Burnley Central, which should have been open until 9.15pm, also proved fruitless as the office had closed at 2.15pm because of staff shortages.

The next day, Mrs Wright arrived at Burnley to buy a ticket and she said: "The man in the office told me the fare would be £173.

"It was not his fault, but he said he couldn't help but feel guilty for my misfortune.

"I bought a ticket for the day before I wanted to travel because it was a third of the price he quoted.

"This will inconvenience both me and my daughter, who will have to accommodate me overnight.

"This situation is outrageous -- will someone please advise me how to buy a ticket?. "

Mrs Wright added that the company seemed to penalise business people and had an 'unfair code.' She also said customers were 'kept in the dark' about the type of tickets available.

A spokesman for Virgin Trains said the company had replied to Mrs Wright apologising for the fact she did not receive good service at the call centre.

He said: "We're very sorry. The response should have been much quicker."

He also apologised for the mistake in issuing tickets, saying the journey's day and time should have been confirmed at the time the booking was made.

"Unfortunately, with the best of intentions in this case, things have gone a little bit wrong and we're sorry about that."

The spokesman added that if people were prepared to travel at certain times then they would obtain cheaper fares.

He said 10 per cent off an open ticket was given if a journey was booked though the Internet or via a call centre and Virgin had done quite a bit of advertising to promote this.

A Preston to London return standard was £170 return and a Virgin Value three-day ticket bought in advance from Burnley to London was £45.