Split Ticket Validity with SWR/Grand Central for 8th April?

[Daniel3665]

Hi everyone, just got a question about split ticket validity during the upcoming strikes next weekend. A friend has booked the following tickets from Christchurch (CHR) to York (YRK) for Monday 8th April, all booked with the LNER app (before these latest strikes were announced):

08:25 CHR -> 10:24 London Waterloo (WAT) (advance single) (SWR)

11:27 London Kings Cross (KGX) -> 13:17 YRK (advance single) (Grand Central)

Her intentions were to use contactless for the journey across London as she prefers this to having paper tickets, and hence booked the other tickets separately, so doesn't have an itinerary from any ticket retailer for the complete journey, although I believe it would comply with all the requirements to have one

With Monday 8th April being announced as a strike day for SWR her first train has been (or is likely to be) cancelled and I believe her first ticket would be valid for use between Thursday 4th April and Wednesday 10th April inclusive as per the SWR website

However her second journey being with Grand Central, they are not on strike that day. Where does that leave her in terms of being able to travel on the day(s) either side, likely the day after, Tuesday 9th April? Would a Grand Central Guard accept the ticket from the day before without the full itinerary? And if not, would a fee free refund or change of journey to a different day be available for the KGX -> YRK portion or not?

 

[bcarmicle]

https://www.grandcentralrail.com/strike suggests that Grand Central will not be accepting tickets on different days (at least that is the practical position, I don't know if the legal position is different), but refund/change of journey should be possible.

 

[Watershed]

Along with Hull Trains, Lumo and Caledonian Sleeper, Grand Central have decided they don't fancy honouring the industry-wide ticket acceptance that's in place on dates before and after the strike days.

Whilst of course only DfT-controlled operators are affected by this strike action, the more sensible and passenger-friendly TOCs such as TfW, ScotRail and London Overground are accepting tickets affected by the strike action despite their services (generally) running normally. But not GC, who are of course notoriously keen at dodging their passenger obligations.

The fact they're not part of the industry-wide ticket acceptance scheme isn't the end of the story though. That is effectively just a voluntary scheme that makes it easier for people to exercise their rights, since there is no need to get your ticket redated. It remains the case that under the NRCoT and PRO, operators are obliged to accept your ticket on a later service or to redate your ticket free of charge (respectively), in the event of significant disruption such as this.

The only wrinkle here is that you don't hold a contiguous set of split tickets. GC may try and argue that since your tickets don't join up across London, and you didn't already hold a ticket for that cross-London transfer, you have two separate contracts. I would strongly disagree with that view, and in any event it's possible they will just wrongly claim you're on your own anyway.

I would contact SWR (as the train company at "fault") to ask them to re-date your tickets free of charge under condition 28.3 of the NRCoT and Article 16 of the PRO. It's best to do this in writing (e.g. via social media) in order to have clear evidence of having given them an opportunity to do so. In all likelihood they'll refuse and you'll have to pay to change your GC ticket, but this will then give you grounds to claim this back from SWR afterwards.

Let us know how SWR respond and we can advise you further accordingly.