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Last week I attended the annual research conference of the Council for Hospitality Management
Education ( http://www.chme.org.uk/ ) at Buxton. A most enjoyable and full of knowledge conference, but this blogpost is not about that kind of
academic knowledge
No, this post is about what happened to me when I booked
my train tickets. I had to be at Buxton
very early and the ticket cost was coming to around £250 return! One minor
heart attack later I checked how much it would cost if I booked for the night
before and stayed at a hotel for the night.
Surprise-surprise the return ticket would be £95 and the hotel room
£72.50 so that was still a saving of £83…
the bigger surprise was that the first class train from Euston to Buxton
was £3.50 cheaper than the standard! I
didn’t ask any questions so promptly booked it.
A few minutes later my wife points out I would arrive there past
midnight… Ops! If one of the connecting trains was delayed I would be in a mess
but the damage was done. Perhaps there
was one last hope if I played my cards right at the Euston ticket office (or so
I thought).
My train from Euston was departing at 9pm but I had arrived
at 6:45pm so although I had enough paperwork with me to last me two days I
would still prefer to be at my hotel room sooner rather than later. When the ticket officer explains that it
would cost me £65 to downgrade from 1st to standard in order to
catch the 7pm train I get another minor heart attack and lose all hope…
Resigned I respond… “oh well I guess I ll have to experience the 1st
class for the first time in my life” to which he responds “well sir you know
you can use the executive lounge 2 hours prior to your departure?”
What? Train stations ALSO have executive lounges? Yup knowledge is power! I had the most enjoyable
2 hours with speedy wifi, free coffee, light snacks, soft drinks and so much
comfort that I managed to finish double the amount of work I was planning to do
in the two hours. Not to mention the
luxury and freebies on the train: Free wifi, beer from Barcelona, Siberian cake...
I probably never be lucky enough again to find a ticket so
cheap AND first class but now that I am equipped with that knowledge I will be
actively looking out for such deals. You may
think of it as a clever Virgin Trains promotion, I call it knowledge and I
intend to be using it much more in the future.
Yup knowledge is power!
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