Compensation: Episode 10 Victory!

In my previous post I wrote that of the four Delay Repay claims made to the railways this year two had been settled, one wrongly refused and another "pending".

The pending claim was from Trans Pennine. I'd bought a ticket (actually two tickets, split at Sheffield) for a journey from Lancaster to Lincoln. An incident on the  direct between Manchester and Sheffield saw me having to divert via Leeds and consequently arrive at Lincoln 53 minutes late.

Trans Pennine's computer (I'm convinced claims are initially processed by computer) rejected my claim because it hadn't been programmed to take account of the line closure and diversion. Despite the fact that I had bought Advance Purchase tickets, restricted to certain trains, it came up with a route it "thought" I had taken and on which I would not have been delayed.  

I had to send two emails to the Customer Services Team and refer the matter to Transport Focus before I could get a human being to investigate, but when they did they agreed I was right and refunded not just the 50% of the ticket price I was entitled to but the whole 100%. Mind you, I haven't received the cheque yet as it takes them three weeks to issue one (do they have many claims, I wonder?) but I'm claiming it as a double success!

Since then, I have had to make yet another claim, this time from Virgin Trains.  My journey to Liverpool on October 3rd was disrupted when the Virgin train to Wigan arrived late in Lancaster and then sat there for 15 minutes whilst a "faulty door" was sorted out. This meant I  missed my connection onto the fast train to Liverpool and had to follow behind on the stopper. Even then I wouldn't have been entitled to compensation had not the stopper itself been delayed. It arrived only 3 minutes late, but that was 32 minutes after I should have been there.

Under the Delay Repay rules, a delay of over 30 minutes entitles you to 25% of your return fare which only amounted to £3.42  but I've become so engrossed in the Delay Repay process that I claimed anyway - and was rewarded with a cheque for £6.83 - double what I was entitled to!

So with Northern sending me a free return ticket when I only asked for a single and both Trans Pennine and Virgin sending me double the amount I was entitled to, whilst Arriva Trains Wales paid up the right amount promptly,  I'm going to ignore the £2.20 that Northern cheated me out of at York and declare total victory!

But I'm also going to have to ignore the £30 or so that I paid for non-refundable Advance Tickets to Peterborough and back in September but was unable to use.  Oh well, a few more Delay Repay claims should put that right!