August 1, 2020 – In a year full of news, breaking news, twists, and turns, one thing has gone almost unnoticed in Croatia: it seems that we can finally purchase Jadrolinija tickets through a mobile application!
It’s been a while since Jadrolinija has had their mobile application, which was supposed to make it possible to purchase the tickets online and use them on your phone, without printing or waiting in lines. I say it was supposed to, because if you’d ever tried using it, you probably left it frustrated, angry, and still walking to their booth in the hope you’d still be able to purchase the Jadrolinija tickets in person. Ever since it was introduced, it was unpredictable (at best) or completely unusable (at its worst). I have downloaded it two years ago, tried using it, failed miserably, and just gave up on it, just like many other potential users. I’ve heard other first-hand experiences of people trying to purchase tickets over the app as late as June 15 this year and not succeeding – this is the story the famed Croatian photographer Jadran Lazić told me!
So, when I read in mid-July that they’ve issued a new version of the application, with numerous improvements, AND I needed to travel to an island and buy two ferry tickets for my trip, I decided to give it a try. I figured: it’s not really much of a tourist season, I was going to travel on a “light” day, what was the worst thing that could happen? I could end up spending days arguing with them to get a refund, but nothing worse than that. I installed it, and while I don’t remember what the old one looked like, this new one is (this is a personal opinion of a very demanding user who is not really interested in the appearance, but usability) – good. It’s clean. It’s easy to understand. The process is straightforward.
One of the things I appreciate is that it’s really easy to get an invoice for your company direct from the application (although I didn’t need it this time, I hate it when they make it complicated, and Jadrolinija has made it as simple as possible). You get transferred to the paywall, one of the most frequently-used ones in Croatia, enter your credit card details (if I really wanted to nit-pick, I could say that they might allow payment through PayPal as well, but let’s not go there) and voilà, you get your tickets in minutes. You receive a .pdf file in your e-mail inbox, and you can access your purchased tickets through the app itself. Perfect.
However, since this is 2020 and nothing goes as planned, even if you’ve purchased the tickets for tomorrow’s trip, I had to cancel. I couldn’t go, and I didn’t want my Jadrolinija tickets to go to waste. After some time spent with my best friend, Google, I had all the answers: to get refunded for the tickets you purchased but won’t be able to use, you need to contact the company at [email protected], at least 6 hours before the scheduled time on the ticket, and you will be given a refund. Not a full refund, mind you, they keep 10% of the price of your ticket, but you still get 90% back.
And that’s what I did, I sent the .pdfs for my tickets to the e-mail address, received the reply from Jadrolinija office within hours that the funds will be refunded to the credit card I used for the purchase. And refunded they were, although it took them a few days to do that. It should be a big deal, waiting for a couple of days, if you know everything will be OK in the end.
While I have not tried this myself, it should also be possible to get the refund using the same route even if you purchased the Jadrolinija tickets in person, if you do it 6 hours before the scheduled departure. If you’ve tried that and it has or hasn’t worked, please let us know so we can update this article with additional experiences.
If you want to give the new app a go, you can download it from the AppStore or Google Play.
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