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Virgin Trains Delay repay Sail Rail.

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158820

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Hello all. Last Friday 08/03 unfortunately I was delayed and missed my ferry from Holyhead to Dublin.

I had a sail rail advance Colwyn Bay to Mallow (CIV) cost £60. 7. 27 Virgin Service was delayed due to a fault on the train. It arrived in Holyhead 33Late.
Causing me ro miss the 8.55 sailing.

I instead got the 14.00 sailing arriving at my destination 21.58 vice 16.09.

Firstly I presume I am entitled to claim delay repay from virgin on this type of ticket?

Problem is the online form won't accept my destination station as valid. It only seems to accept national rail stations. What should I enter here instead?

I know from old threads that atw were good to pay out on sail ticket delays with tight connections.
 
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ForTheLoveOf

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Hello all. Last Friday 08/03 unfortunately I was delayed and missed my ferry from Holyhead to Dublin.

I had a sail rail advance Colwyn Bay to Mallow (CIV) cost £60. 7. 27 Virgin Service was delayed due to a fault on the train. It arrived in Holyhead 33Late.
Causing me ro miss the 8.55 sailing.

I instead got the 14.00 sailing arriving at my destination 21.58 vice 16.09.

Firstly I presume I am entitled to claim delay repay from virgin on this type of ticket?

Problem is the online form won't accept my destination station as valid. It only seems to accept national rail stations. What should I enter here instead?

I know from old threads that atw were good to pay out on sail ticket delays with tight connections.
The ticket is no different to any other in terms of eligibility for delay compensation.

Virgin's Delay Repay form is awful, just as some other TOCs' are. Surely they must realise that, shock horror, people aren't just delayed when they travel within the Virgin network!

Anyway, contact their customer relations department ([email protected]) and send off the claim that way. Explan what you've explained here, and include an attachment of your ticket.
 

janb

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Virgin's Delay Repay form is awful, just as some other TOCs' are. It is as good as criminally negligent to fail to include non-Virgin served stations in the list. Surely they must realise that, shock horror, people aren't just delayed when they travel within the Virgin network!

Not defending their form because I am no fan of it, but the way they would want you to fill it in is put Colwyn Bay to Holyhead and then tick the "The delay caused me to miss a connection" box. But with the ferry probably better doing it in plain text as you suggest.
 

Metal_gee_man

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I suppose the difference is 33 minutes delay repay is 50% of the single maybe minus the ferry
Whereas 5h49m delay including ferry is a free journey 100% back

Virgin form definitely doesn't play fair
 

Tetchytyke

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An online form can't cover every eventuality, just email or write to them.

It's not "unfair", most people are travelling between two Virgin stations.
 

ForTheLoveOf

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An online form can't cover every eventuality, just email or write to them.

It's not "unfair", most people are travelling between two Virgin stations.
No, I wouldn't necessarily expect them to include Irish stations, even if through tickets are offered. That is undoubtedly a niche case. But it is hardly a niche case to include all National Rail stations in the UK. It is very lazy and incompetent not to include it.
 

Tetchytyke

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But it is hardly a niche case to include all National Rail stations in the UK.

I can see both sides. I don't want to be trawling through a long list of Berney Arms and Lympstone Commando type places for my Carlisle to London ticket, especially when using the mobile site.

But there could be a way of adding that information as an additional drop down box for those who miss connections.
 

ForTheLoveOf

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I can see both sides. I don't want to be trawling through a long list of Berney Arms and Lympstone Commando type places for my Carlisle to London ticket, especially when using the mobile site.

But there could be a way of adding that information as an additional drop down box for those who miss connections.
It can work in the same way that every other drop-down menu which includes every station works. No different to when you go to the homepage of Virgin Trains and search for the stations between which you want to buy a ticket. Start typing the name and it suggests possible options.

From a technical standpoint it's a non-issue. It's just that they haven't really thought about it. That shows.

Take the Abellio TOCs' Delay Repay websites. They don't accommodate split tickets, but other than that it's about as good as you could ask for.
 

_toommm_

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It can work in the same way that every other drop-down menu which includes every station works. No different to when you go to the homepage of Virgin Trains and search for the stations between which you want to buy a ticket. Start typing the name and it suggests possible options.

From a technical standpoint it's a non-issue. It's just that they haven't really thought about it. That shows.

Take the Abellio TOCs' Delay Repay websites. They don't accommodate split tickets, but other than that it's about as good as you could ask for.

They are incredibly good with split tickets though, at least ScotRail are. I had Aberdeen to Edinburgh SR advance, Edinburgh to Wigan VT advance, and a CountyCard to Ashton. Approved and in my bank in 7 days.
 

ForTheLoveOf

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They are incredibly good with split tickets though, at least ScotRail are. I had Aberdeen to Edinburgh SR advance, Edinburgh to Wigan VT advance, and a CountyCard to Ashton. Approved and in my bank in 7 days.
Oh yes, I've never had them quibble about it. Just a shame that an otherwise perfect Delay Repay system is marred by that!
 

Starmill

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Oh yes, I've never had them quibble about it. Just a shame that an otherwise perfect Delay Repay system is marred by that!
Is it really? It might be unconventional to request that a delay repay form is completed for part of the journey only, rather than all of it, but as long as they pay the correct amount I don't see how it's 'criminally negligent', 'incompetent' or 'lazy'...

If the form were written in such a way that implied that they intended not to pay compensation for the whole journey then I might see your point. But it does not seem to me to do this, and while I have experienced many other train operators making untrue claims about their obligations to pay compensation for the whole journey rather than just the part they were operating, Virgin Trains have never tried to get out of paying me in this way.
 

ForTheLoveOf

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Is it really? It might be unconventional to request that a delay repay form is completed for part of the journey only, rather than all of it, but as long as they pay the correct amount I don't see how it's 'criminally negligent', 'incompetent' or 'lazy'...

If the form were written in such a way that implied that they intended not to pay compensation for the whole journey then I might see your point. But it does not seem to me to do this, and while I have experienced many other train operators making untrue claims about their obligations to pay compensation for the whole journey rather than just the part they were operating, Virgin Trains have never tried to get out of paying me in this way.
Personally, I would never take the risk that my stated origin and destination were taken as a "declaration" of my journey's origin and destination.
 

philjo

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If the form were written in such a way that implied that they intended not to pay compensation for the whole journey then I might see your point. But it does not seem to me to do this, and while I have experienced many other train operators making untrue claims about their obligations to pay compensation for the whole journey rather than just the part they were operating, Virgin Trains have never tried to get out of paying me in this way.
I had to escalate my claim last year several times before Virgin paid out.
My journey was to Windermere but the online form would not let me enter Windermere as a destination. VT declined the initial delay repay application on the basis that the train from Euston was 13 minutes late at Oxenholme - conveniently omitting the fact I had missed the connection to Windermere by about 90 seconds and had to wait 45 minutes for the next one. It was only after about the second escalation when I had sent a copy of the conditions of carriage that VT paid out - this was about 5 months after the initial claim. I find the Virgin form to be awkward to fill in because most of the time my origin/destination stations do not appear on the form. I have never had that problem with LNER/VTEC forms or even GTR !
 

philthetube

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No, I wouldn't necessarily expect them to include Irish stations, even if through tickets are offered. That is undoubtedly a niche case. But it is hardly a niche case to include all National Rail stations in the UK. It is very lazy and incompetent not to include it.

All they need to do is place an other option at the bottom of the list which then opens a box to allow you to enter your destination.
 

Deafdoggie

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I don't get peoples hatred of the Virgin delay repay form. You simply enter the two Virgin stations you were travelling between, and click the "Caused me to miss connections" box if you travelled further. How is this difficult? What it does do, is limit the stations in the drop down list & confirm you should be applying to Virgin thus making your claim quicker. Uploading an image of the ticket(s) shows your journey in total. I don't understand the confusion, or why people don't like it.
 

ForTheLoveOf

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I don't get peoples hatred of the Virgin delay repay form. You simply enter the two Virgin stations you were travelling between, and click the "Caused me to miss connections" box if you travelled further. How is this difficult? What it does do, is limit the stations in the drop down list & confirm you should be applying to Virgin thus making your claim quicker. Uploading an image of the ticket(s) shows your journey in total. I don't understand the confusion, or why people don't like it.
It's perfectly simple enough for them to include all stations in the form, managing it in exactly the same way they do when you search for a journey on their homepage. What's so difficult about just copying that? If you ticket the "caused me to miss connections" box then they have to guess which connections you missed, leading to the claim potentially being incorrectly rejected. Even worse, for example, the fact that a Virgin Trains service was delayed by 3 minutes could mean that you missed an hourly connection, and that you then later miss a two-hourly connection, leading to a two-hour delay from an initial 3 minutes. The current format of the claim form makes it very difficult to indicate that this is what has happened and they may reject the claim.

It's just a lack of considered thought and analysis that has led to this situation.
 
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