Now no Bookings after May4th

[ACustomer]

Following the prolonged hiatus in booking availability post March 19th, the following is on to-day's IE website (March 14th):

To facilitate the upgrade of our booking system, bookings for services beyond the 4th May are currently not available to purchase.

We plan to make these services available to purchase online after Thursday 4th May.

So what is going on? Have they screwed up with the new system? Also the ambiguity of the last sentence quoted is astonishing: it could be taken to mean that services after May 4th, will only be bookable after May 4th.

What about saying "we hope to make services after May 4th bookable by (say) March 31st". I would prefer if they could say "intend" rather than "hope" but that is asking too much. Maybe they just haven't a clue when anything will be available.

[Thomas J Stamp]

sounds like a balls up.

[Jamie2k9]

It's clearly a bad choice of wording.

They have updated:

To facilitate the upgrade of our booking system, bookings for services beyond the 4th May are currently not available to purchase.

We plan to extend online booking availability beyond 4th May in the near future, and will update this page when confirmed.

To view timetables for the 5th May onwards, please visit our Timetable page.

[ACustomer]

To-day (less than 30 days to go) there are still no bookings available beyond May 4th.

A revised notice on the IE website says that they "plan" to have post-May 4th bookings available by April 24th. That's just 10 days advance availability, which is a disgrace, considering how long this mess has been going on.

I hope that this "plan" is closely monitored. A private business would not survive such incompetent behaviour.

[Colm Moore]

http://www.irishrail.ie/news/bookings-unavailable

Bookings Unavailable Beyond 4th May 2017
08 March 2017

To facilitate the upgrade of our booking system, bookings for services beyond the 4th May are currently not available to purchase.

We are currently in the process of launching a new booking system. To facilitate the transition from the old to the new system, dates after 4th May are not bookable at the moment.

Dates after 4th May will be available online week commencing 24th April, the week the new system goes live. In the interim, to view timetables for the 5th May onwards, please visit our Timetable page.

Customers are also advised, on Sunday 23rd April, this site will be unavailable from 18:00hrs – 04:30hrs on Monday 24th April to facilitate this transition.

Iarnród Éireann Irish Rail apologise for any inconvenience caused.

[Jamie2k9]

They have launched the new booking system with a new fare structure:
Non Flexible
* - No Refund
* - No Cancellation
* - Non Transferable
* - Lowest Fare

Medium Flexible
* - Cancellation with T&T"s
* - Fee Applies
* - Option to travel on the next service after schedule or before scheduled only

Fully Flexible
* - Full Refund
* - Travel on other services no restriction