Chiltern Railways - Tickets
This release features improved live train times functionality with live train progress.
It’s simple and secure to purchase your Chiltern Railways e-ticket through the app, download to your phone and use for your next journey. And if you’re planning to travel on another UK rail network, you can buy your ticket on the Chiltern app too. Just purchase the same way and print a paper ticket at your preferred station.
And when you buy train tickets through our app, we’ll never charge you a credit card, debit card or booking fee. So, it’s goodbye pesky queues at the ticket office. And hello cheapest Chiltern fares around!
Download and register the Chiltern Railways app to:
- Always find the cheapest fares available in your search results
- Get an instant e-ticket for many Chiltern Railway journeys, saving time at stations
- Enjoy fee-free fares. You won’t ever pay credit card, debit card or booking fees when you book direct from Chiltern
- Group save bookings for three or more customers can be purchased via the app
- Quickly find your recent journeys in our new My Account section, where your details are securely maintained in the app for quick and easy repurchasing
- Get up-to-the-minute updates on your train status with live departure boards and platform numbers
- Purchase tickets for any UK train journey and collect them at your chosen station with a self-service ticket machine.
Getting your ticket
E-tickets may look like a humble barcode but when they’re stored in your app’s Booking section, they become the quick and easy way to travel – you can even use them if your smartphone is offline.
Picking up tickets from a ticket machine
If you plan to pick up your tickets from a ticket machine, you'll need your reference numbers which are stored in the bookings section to view at any time.
Using your Smartcard
Request a new Smartcard through the app when making your next ticket purchase. We will then send you your Smartcard in the post. You may then load the ticket onto the Smartcard at the gate, or via the app.
Category : Travel & Local
Reviews (30)
I'm convinced no-one who works on this app uses it day to day, especially with a smartcard. Obvious pain points, half baked information, sometimes outright contradictions. It is functional eventually, but it's a real slog sometimes.
I use it consistently and it works so well for a vast majority of the time. Had a few problems but only because I hadn't upgraded it. Did so; very good improvements.
No live trains. First time using this. Looking for live trains Amersham to Marylebone. No data. Website also not showing any trains to Marylebone, but is showing trains to Beaconsfield from Amersham, a totally new route.
Terribly slow, seems to connect to some server every step of the way - this takes literally minutes. Downloading tickets doesn't make any sense as it still tries to connect even after you've downloaded them. As it is so slow, on two occasions my phone went into screen lock during payment processing, which for some reason made this app to auto-cancel the booking even though it was successful. Cancellation email states I've been refunded, which never actually happened. Have to sort this out with the bank now. Horrible and disappointing.
Rubbish app...charges you £1 EXTRA every time you book a ticket. App tells you your eticket/'collect from station' option is free, but when you check your bank/credit card statement a separate transaction of £1 is added every time. If you make a mistake with the booking you are unable to cancel or amend the date on the app. You can fill out a form and they will contact you within 10 days. When you call up to cancel you are told you need to post the tickets off to receive a refund!...what a joke!
Technically it does the job, but the user experience is awful. Not sorting tickets by date, not archiving tickets valid in the past, unclear UI for tapping on a screen area to open a ticket, not remembering the last ticket I had open (crazy given I have to use the same ticket twice at either end of the journey and I'm not going to use the app otherwise), the list goes on... Having 3/4 of the scanners on gates out of order hardly helps either, but that's not the app's fault.
This app has not worked for me since it was upgraded recently. That did coincide with a new phone but it is the best phone I've ever had and all my other apps have shown a marked improvement. There is no function in the app that requires communications that works for me; I can't view train times or buy tickets. I have left 2 stars in this review in memory of the functionality from the previous version
Woefully slow app. Tickets machines in the stations are quicker. Every other ticketing app I've ever used is quicker. It is forever waiting for a network connection I guess. Once purchased, tiickets ony accessible through multiple menu's so there is a complete lack of user experience design. A very good example of how not to do it.
Purchased 2 tickets but only displays 1. Asked at both Beaconsfield and Marylebone and no one had a clue about the app or what was going on. Also can't buy car park tickets on this so I still have to use the machines at the station (which are also a rubbish experience too). Come on Chiltern Railways, it can't be that hard to improve the app. Uninstalling until it works!
eticket purchase and display excruciatingly show and cumbersome, involving too many button presses in between waiting around for the app to respond. Far quicker to queue for a paper ticket at the machine. Was once even charged a penalty fare for being unable to download, "enable" a pre-purchased e-ticket in the 10 minutes I had available before the train left. Avoid.
Rubbish! Makes your journey more difficult. Can't download your ticket, and the app reverts to home screen when your screen turns off - so you need a connection to show anyone your ticket!! Plus the barcode doesn't scan at barrier machines on my phone, so you need to wait for a member of staff!! Waste of space.
Convenient but a bit hit and miss wben booking tickets - took 25 minutrs and several goes!
Getting better and more stable since I first started using it. You have to hunt about to find the things you need. The bar code for e-tickets is a good example, it took me ages to find it and not quick when at the train station. Shortcut on the main screen is needed. You can't buy a season ticket on the app only a single or return, why not?
Cheaper at the ticket machine. Seems to be superfluous to requirements.
It does not work. I can't find a way to buy a ticket using this app. So frustrating.
app is ok.this website never accept any discount codes although they are advertised them.
easy to use. tickets can be stored on the app
This app is horrendously slow to load bookings and display purchased tickets. I tried to purchase a ticket via the app last night but had to abandon it because it errored at the payment stage. Having bought a ticket via the website and downloaded it, I now cannot view that ticket to enable it. Suggest you spend some time fixing performance and functionality issues before adding any more new features - this app is virtually unusable as it stands.
Get the trainline app instead. Truly awful! Have experienced multiple booking errors where am charged but no tickets created. What is worse is simply the number of clicks it takes to actually get to your digital ticket, which is unbelievable (and that you have to be online the whole time and can't just download them). Did they use anyone with UI experience or even test it in developing this app? Rubbish!
One of the better ticketing apps, I use this despite being miles away from the Chiltern route as it has an intuitive interface and meets the full e ticket specification, giving you an email with. Pdf files in addition to the in app wallet. So you can print the tickets if you're worried about running out of battery, unlike the tpe app.
I book through Chiltern because they do good cashback rates online, but managing bookings and tickets in the app is really slow and fiddly. Even showing them in the order of journey date rather than date purchased would improve things. Can't remove used tickets, and trying to load them whilst approaching a gate takes way too long! Recent updates have slightly improved things, but there is still a way to go
Recently it's has been a nightmare to buy tickets. I either have to reinstall every time or try a million times with the hope it might work. It has also started crashing if you try to scroll to earlier trains.
The worst software and company ever! I tried to install the application in my LG G3 and apparently my device is not compatible with this software (as it is said by Google apps). I contacted the company, and I can't get the tickets in any other way. After giving all the booking details, they couldn't change anything. Without the software in my mobile, no tickets. No further explanation. Awful.
Return ticket prices are wrong more often than not, until you click through to the summary page when the cost suddenly increases enormously. Ticket option isn't obvious - you have to choose collect from machine in order to get the e-ticket option! For best results use their website on desktop rather than this app.
Clean app, generally easy to use and no booking fee, yay! My only suggestion is to add a feature to clearly mark which tickets I have used and which I haven't yet - I travel quite frequently and it can be confusing when you have multiple in the 'past bookings' section.
What went so wrong! The Chiltern Railways app use to be super responsive and such a breeze to book tickets, and now it is an absolute joke, totally unresponsive, constant time outs and double charges and booking is impossible 95% of the time. They should seriously look at rehiring the developers who created the original app that actually worked.
Sometimes, in Live Trains, a train shows as having arrived at a station but then shows as still being en route to the station until you refresh the screen a minute later. There appears to be a limit of six favourite journeys. As I have outbound and return journeys saved separately I now cannot add any more routes.
app was required just to view previously purchased e-tickets. couldn't you email those QR codes instead? also required full registration, no option for guest checkout. Have taken screenshots of the ticket and will delete the app as soon as we've stepped off the train! not buying via chiltern online again - better off queuing at a station!!
Joke of an app. Tried twice with different email addresses to buy tickets online and in the app. Failed to let me register both times, once said confirmation email failed but would be sent 'latter' then claimed email had been sent but none received. Unable to buy tickets (was reluctant in the first place as have had bad experiences in the past) so wasn't upset to have to go to another train company. Awful
a genuinely easy to use app which helps you buy the cheap train tickets with easy to use digital bar codes so you don't have to worry about printed tickets. If you are especially a frequent traveler with Chiltern then I highly recommend this app to make your commutes less stressful!