Southern - Delay Repay and E-vouchers

[AlterEgo]

Hello,

Quick couple of questions:

I need to claim Delay Repay for a delay which occurred on Southern's network last week.

I'm going to fill in the online form and request to receive the compensation in e-vouchers to my account. Does anyone know how long they usually take in practice?

Secondly, does any other TOC issue e-vouchers for delay purposes? These are so much more useful for some customers and I'd like to find out more about them.

 

[island]

No idea on the processing time. I've claimed delay-repay from East Coast and Southeastern, which have both been paper vouchers.

Allegedly if you don't want to go to a station to use a paper voucher, you can phone up FGW Telesales who will either charge your credit card then refund it when you post in the vouchers, or wait for you to post in the vouchers then release the tickets. (I say either/or because it does one of them, and I can't remember which, not because you get a choice.)

 

[AlterEgo]

Allegedly if you don't want to go to a station to use a paper voucher, you can phone up FGW Telesales who will either charge your credit card then refund it when you post in the vouchers, or wait for you to post in the vouchers then release the tickets. (I say either/or because it does one of them, and I can't remember which, not because you get a choice.)

Virgin Telesales also offer the same facility. They take part payment with your card and release the tickets when you post the voucher to them.

 

[RJ]

I've claimed from Southern before. You need to be careful with that online form as it has a habit of submitting when you didn't intend to. I "submitted" around 4 incomplete claims (evoucher set as default) before I realised what was happening and took more care.

After around a weeks, I received an email stating that I had been credited with a £2.49 e-voucher. A couple of days later, I received a cheque (which is what I wanted and was selected on the only complete form I submitted) for £34.60. And two days later than that, I received a letter stating the claim had been rejected as they reckoned the train wasn't sufficiently delayed. Talk about consistency!

The train was exactly 30 late, which was nerve wracking on the day as at the last minute they decided to remove several stops on the service to make up time, yet it was still 30 late . Wouldn't have been fair if it wasn't, given I sat on that cramped train for so long!

 

[Brucey]

It normally takes 3 to 4 weeks for a Delay Repay claim to be processed. Sometimes longer if there have been many incidents recently, in which case you will get an email/letter stating that the claim has been delayed.

As far as I'm aware, only Southern offer e-vouchers. I find this very handy as most of my bookings are now made online and this is much more convenient than having to visit a booking office.

Also quite clever thinking from GoVia, as it guarantees them commission from another sale being made through their website whilst saving the cost of a letter and stamp.

 

[MarkyMarkD]

Quite agree that it makes sense for a TOC to issue a refund as an e-voucher which must be used on their site (from their point of view) but it would really be fairer for a cross-valid e-voucher to be issued (from the customer's point of view).

I hate getting paper vouchers which just rattle around gathering dust whilst I am ordering tickets online. I currently have a daft one for £1.60 which is a nuisance - it means queuing at a ticket office to buy a ticket, rather than buying it online and simply collecting from the machine at a station.

If I bought straightforward tickets more often, maybe I wouldn't mind!

 

[All Line Rover]

Quite agree that it makes sense for a TOC to issue a refund as an e-voucher which must be used on their site (from their point of view) but it would really be fairer for a cross-valid e-voucher to be issued (from the customer's point of view).

I hate getting paper vouchers which just rattle around gathering dust whilst I am ordering tickets online. I currently have a daft one for £1.60 which is a nuisance - it means queuing at a ticket office to buy a ticket, rather than buying it online and simply collecting from the machine at a station.

If I bought straightforward tickets more often, maybe I wouldn't mind!

If you visit London often, I find the easiest way to get rid of small value RTV's is to load them onto my Oyster card.

 

[AlterEgo]

Quite agree that it makes sense for a TOC to issue a refund as an e-voucher which must be used on their site (from their point of view) but it would really be fairer for a cross-valid e-voucher to be issued (from the customer's point of view).

To be fair, that is never ever going to happen as a variety of booking engines are used by retailers and TOCs to sell tickets.

Southern are ahead of the game here in giving you a choice of receiving an e-voucher for their website or just standard Rail Travel Vouchers.

 

[island]

Quite agree that it makes sense for a TOC to issue a refund as an e-voucher which must be used on their site (from their point of view) but it would really be fairer for a cross-valid e-voucher to be issued (from the customer's point of view).

I hate getting paper vouchers which just rattle around gathering dust whilst I am ordering tickets online. I currently have a daft one for £1.60 which is a nuisance - it means queuing at a ticket office to buy a ticket, rather than buying it online and simply collecting from the machine at a station.

If I bought straightforward tickets more often, maybe I wouldn't mind!

You could use them as an excuse to buy at your destination I suppose

If you visit London often, I find the easiest way to get rid of small value RTV's is to load them onto my Oyster card.

Don't you have to go to one of the lesser-spotted TOC stations with Oyster facilities to do that though?

 

[All Line Rover]

Don't you have to go to one of the lesser-spotted TOC stations with Oyster facilities to do that though?

All LUL ticket offices can do it (apparently), as well as TOC ticket offices at all of the main London terminals.