Delay Repay Query with Abellio Greater Anglia

[Silver Cobra]

Hi everyone; new user here. I've been reading these forums for a while now, but I've now registered to post a query on a potential delay repay with Abellio Greater Anglia, to see if it is worth making a claim.

Today I travelled from Hitchin to Great Yarmouth, using a combination of an Anytime Day Return from Hitchin to Cambridge and an Off-Peak Day Return from Cambridge to Great Yarmouth. The itinerary I was using for this journey, which both NRE's journey planner and Virgin Trains East Coast's booking engine offer as a valid choice, was the following:

Outbound
0822 Hitchin > 0904 Cambridge - Great Northern
0912 Cambridge > 1030 Norwich - Abellio Greater Anglia
1036 Norwich > 1112 Great Yarmouth - AGA

Return
1517 Great Yarmouth > 1555 Norwich - AGA
1600 Norwich > 1629 Stowmarket - AGA
1635 Stowmarket > 1739 Cambridge - AGA
1755 Cambridge > 1835 Hitchin - GN

I encountered no issues with my outbound journey; all trains arrived on time at each point and I made all my necessary connections. However, I wasn't quite so lucky on the return leg. The 1517 from Great Yarmouth arrived into Norwich about 2-3 minutes late, but I was still able to make the connection to the 1600. The 1600 also encountered a delay, this time of 12 minutes, and because of this, I missed my connection to the 1635 at Stowmarket. The result of this was I had to wait for the 1735 to Cambridge. Inevitably this meant I also missed the 1755 at Cambridge for Hitchin, so I had to get the 1855 back. Therefore, I returned to Hitchin an hour later than I originally intended.

Here's the Raildar information on the 1600 and 1635 AGA services:

http://raildar.co.uk/timetable/journey?trainid=G01149&dt=2015-06-04
http://raildar.co.uk/timetable/journey?trainid=G04488&dt=2015-06-04

Now my question is, although the 1600 service was only delayed by 12 minutes, because it caused me to miss my intended connections at Stowmarket and Cambridge, can I make a claim to AGA for a 60+ minute delay? Also, can I claim for the whole of the return leg, or just AGA's part?

Thanks very much for reading

 

[najaB]

Delay Repay claims are made to the company who's train ran late or was cancelled, and are based on the overall delay to your journey. So, yes, you should claim against AGA, and it should be for the full one hour's delay.

 

[Silver Cobra]

Thanks very much for your reply That's good to hear. I'll start filling in the claim now.

**EDIT: I checked Raildar again on a whim to see the information for the Great Northern service to Hitchin, and it turns out the train was in fact 1 minute ahead of schedule. As such, my journey was technically only delayed overall by 59 minutes. Oh well... I imagine that AGA will take that into account and reduce the claim to a 30-59 minute claim, but it's still better than nothing.

 

[Hadders]

When I make delay repay claims involving a combination of tickets and multiple TOC's I always give full details of my planned itinerary (like you have done above) and also give the actual times and clearly state the delay to your overall journey.

Also include or scan all the tickets. It's never failed yet!

 

[yorkie]

..., can I make a claim to AGA for a 60+ minute delay? Also, can I claim for the whole of the return leg, or just AGA's part?....

Yes Delay Repay is based on the delay to your journey (based on a valid itinerary), not the delay to any of the trains you caught at an intermediate point.

As others say, ensure the information provided is concise. Scan/photograph/enclose all relevant tickets.

 

[Haywain]

Thanks very much for your reply That's good to hear. I'll start filling in the claim now.

**EDIT: I checked Raildar again on a whim to see the information for the Great Northern service to Hitchin, and it turns out the train was in fact 1 minute ahead of schedule. As such, my journey was technically only delayed overall by 59 minutes. Oh well... I imagine that AGA will take that into account and reduce the claim to a 30-59 minute claim, but it's still better than nothing.

The train that you used is advertised as arriving at Hitchin 59 minutes later than the one you intended to use, so with it arriving early (at 19:33), you are definitely in the 30-59 minute bracket. However, you might get lucky!

 

[Silver Cobra]

Thanks for your replies everyone Taking all points into consideration, I completed the claim for a 30-59 minute delay, listing my itinerary and the arrival times for each service I used, and sent the form off with my tickets this morning. This is only the second time I've made a delay repay claim; the first being with Great Northern back in January for a 35-minute delay heading into King's Cross from Arlesey. It's a shame Abellio don't offer the ability to claim online like Great Northern does (unless you are a season ticket holder), so it'll be a few weeks before I hear anything.

**EDIT 19-06-2015: I've received a response from AGA today, and am pleasantly surprised that they have given me an RTV to the value of £14.90 (the full cost of the return leg rounded up to the nearest 10p). They had no obligation to refund the full cost of the return leg with the total delay being 59 minutes, so it's quite generous of them to do that. Very happy with the result