bus-ted?

May 28, 2011 7:52 PM

Mexico bus filter... can't print out my ticket! Am I screwed?

This morning I bought a bus ticket online (some sort of first-class or luxury bus...the outfit is ADO GL) for tomorrow out of Mexico City TAPO. I bought it using ticketbus.com.mx, not the company's own site. Everything looked fine, but when I went later to print my PDF out, the file is some sort of corrupted 0-byte thing. And it occurred to me now that they never sent anything to my email address.

The website has a 'reprint your boarding pass' form, but when I go through the motions, it keeps taking me to an error message. Though nothing has shown up on my card yet, I am pretty sure the purchase went through, as when I pretend to buy another ticket, it shows the seat I selected as one of the few occupied.

I was able to figure out my 12-digit 'código' by looking at my URL history. If I show up at TAPO with this number, my ID, my seat number, and puppy-dog eyes, will they let me on the bus? I don't really mind if the purchase got botched up and I have to buy a new ticket, but I certainly can't afford two.

posted by threeants to travel & transportation around Mexico (5 answers total)

The bus system in Mexico is surprisingly permissive. I'm honestly amazed they even had a web interface. In the past, I've just been able to flag down a bus, pay the driver and head off to my destination. It helps if you speak Spanish, but if you show up at the station with your details, and make it clear that you're not rich and can't afford a second ticket, it's very likely that you'll get a seat.
posted by Gilbert at 8:00 PM on May 28, 2011

All the first-class bus companies I've dealt with in Mexico take names and reserve seats in their computer systems. I'd be super surprised if the ticket counter at the station couldn't print out a new ticket for you if you supplied ID and told them which bus you had booked. They normally tick off individual seats according to the tickets when you board, so they wouldn't need to be worried about two people using tickets for the same seat. I haven't gone through TAPO myself but judging by all other bus stations I've used, you'll most likely need a ticket to pass through to the boarding area, and to board the bus, but the ticket counter for your bus company will be at the terminal before that area, and they'll be able to help you out.

Of course, if they have no record of you in their system due to some problem with ticketbus.com.mx then things might get ugly. You could also be in trouble if the ticket counter can't access the system (see here), but I reckon you'd have to be unlucky. Here are some other experiences with ADO/Ticketbus. On the whole, though, I'd be somewhat optimistic in your boots.

Also, I might suggest that you try printing out your ticket using a different browser (e.g., Internet Explorer?). Browser behaviour with PDFs can be highly variant, and Mexican websites, in my experience, do not necessarily test things particularly well across a range of browsers.
posted by bunyip at 9:34 PM on May 28, 2011

There's a "Reimprima su pase de abordar" (print again your boarding pass) button in the homepage, did you try it?

It's been years since I used an ADO bus, but I'm pretty sure they will let you in if you show a photo ID that matches your ticket.
posted by clearlydemon at 11:10 PM on May 28, 2011

A longshot, but I've had lots of problems printing PDFs from within Chrome on Windows. Are you opening it in Adobe reader/acrobat/whatever?
posted by These Premises Are Alarmed at 5:39 AM on May 29, 2011

A bit late, but thanks everyone! I had no trouble boarding with an ID.
posted by threeants at 3:14 PM on August 10, 2011