Friday night plan was to get the train into Belfast with my family of 4 for dinner. No delays on the train we thought. This is how complicated the whole ticket process is. mLink app – can only buy one ticket, would need everyone to create an account and buy their own tickets. Translink webpage- able to buy 4 tickets, great. Got ticket email – these are not your actual tickets, you need paper tickets to travel. Please put your confirmation code for each ticket into the ticket machine at the station. Arrived at train station and spent 5 minutes individually inputting the long code for each ticket into the machine to get 4 paper tickets. There is a QR code on the ticket but this can’t be read by the ticket machine. The other option is to ask the conductor to print you tickets on board. We didn’t see a conductor on our short journey. Turns out we had plenty of time to print the tickets at the station as the train was delayed by 15 minutes.

by docgasman

3 comments

  2. I dunno man, 6 digits is not a long code. If you use two factor authentication for security on accounts (you should where possible) then you get the numbers, punch them in and done.

    The screenshot also does literally say you show the QR code to staff so not sure why you’re expecting the machine to scan it.

    You could have added all 4 tickets to your apple or Google wallet and that would have covered everyone.

  3. You seem to be leaving out the second half of your Translink experience – what was the outcome? Did you get in Belfast okay? The printing of tickets sounds convoluted ngl, but seems like you got them printed within the 5 mins anyway.

    The QR code on your tickets is for the conductor and the turnstiles at Grand Central Station – Why were you concerned about whether the QA code could be scanned at the ticket machine that just issued your tickets?

    Like you said you had a short journey, there would be little reason for a conductor to be on validating your tickets as that would happen at either Grand Central or Lanyon Place anyway.

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