• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Any chance of a refund? Virgin Advance

Status
Not open for further replies.

Pumperkin

Member
Joined
15 Jan 2019
Messages
159
Hi,

I had a single booked on Saturday night from Euston -> Sandwell.

Due to a combination of tube cancellations and taking way longer to walk and get alternative tubes I ended up missing it by minutes.

It was a Virgin advance (£10.50).

Is there any scope for a refund? I collected the ticket in the morning so presumably not as there's no evidence I didn't use it, and I guess they're non-fundable anyway.
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

yorkie

Forum Staff
Staff Member
Administrator
Joined
6 Jun 2005
Messages
67,439
Location
Yorkshire
If your journey had started with a National Rail service (inc. London Overground) you'd be covered.

There'd also be a case to argue you should be covered if you had an inclusive LU ticket.

But if you just had a ticket from London Euston and that was the start of your journey on National Rail services, then assuming the train was on time, you have no case.

You could have changed it for a £10 fee (not much of a saving in this case!) before departure, but not after the train has departed.
 

RJ

Established Member
Joined
25 Jun 2005
Messages
8,383
Location
Back office
Even if you were entitled to one, there would be a £10 admin fee so you'd get 50p back!
 

ForTheLoveOf

Established Member
Joined
7 Oct 2017
Messages
6,416
Even if you were entitled to one, there would be a £10 admin fee so you'd get 50p back!
Although obviously no fee if the OP decided to abandon their (originally planned) journey on the grounds of the disruption.
 

Pumperkin

Member
Joined
15 Jan 2019
Messages
159
Haha thanks all - don't think I'll bother for the sake of 50p, as really it was my own fault anyway for being late.

On the plus side, I did manage to get a £15 single ticket to Sandwell (Super Off Peak Single I think it was). I did have to wrestle with the machine at Euston for it though (Virgin machines seemed to only allow the Virgin fares - managed to find a LNW machine (or was it just a National Rail machine if they exist?) and amend the date.

Weirdly, it seemed it would allow me to buy a ticket valid for travel on the 11th, after all services on the 11th had already departed.. surely this is wrong?
 

Haywain

Veteran Member
Joined
3 Feb 2013
Messages
14,877
Although obviously no fee if the OP decided to abandon their (originally planned) journey on the grounds of the disruption.
That wouldn't apply for disruption (which I suspect may have been planned engineering works) to underground services that were not part of the ticketed journey.
Weirdly, it seemed it would allow me to buy a ticket valid for travel on the 11th, after all services on the 11th had already departed.. surely this is wrong?
Unless the machine also offers a journey planning element it will simply sell tickets at all times unless they are suppressed.
 

ForTheLoveOf

Established Member
Joined
7 Oct 2017
Messages
6,416
Weirdly, it seemed it would allow me to buy a ticket valid for travel on the 11th, after all services on the 11th had already departed.. surely this is wrong?
Tickets valid for one day are also valid until 04:29 the following morning (to allow for trains in the small hours).
 

Pumperkin

Member
Joined
15 Jan 2019
Messages
159
Tickets valid for one day are also valid until 04:29 the following morning (to allow for trains in the small hours).

OK, but given there were no services at all at that time of night, it seems very strange to allow me to buy a ticket. Unless it allows for the overnight at Northampton that the Virgin rep at Euston suggested?
 

ForTheLoveOf

Established Member
Joined
7 Oct 2017
Messages
6,416
OK, but given there were no services at all at that time of night, it seems very strange to allow me to buy a ticket. Unless it allows for the overnight at Northampton that the Virgin rep at Euston suggested?
Off-Peak Single tickets are valid to break your journey overnight onto a second day if you cannot complete the journey, as in this case.
 

Pumperkin

Member
Joined
15 Jan 2019
Messages
159
Off-Peak Single tickets are valid to break your journey overnight onto a second day if you cannot complete the journey, as in this case.

Ahh thanks. So if you start too late to complete, you're allowed to travel on the next day. Should you be catching the first train next day? Or can you stop off, sleep at a hotel, have a lie-in, then travel when it suits? Or are you supposed to stay at the station?
 

ForTheLoveOf

Established Member
Joined
7 Oct 2017
Messages
6,416
Ahh thanks. So if you start too late to complete, you're allowed to travel on the next day. Should you be catching the first train next day? Or can you stop off, sleep at a hotel, have a lie-in, then travel when it suits? Or are you supposed to stay at the station?
There are no set rules as to where you must stay - the rule is simply that all travel must be completed by 04:29 on the third day (e.g. if your ticket's "valid on" date was the 1st of the month, you'd have to finish all travel by 04:29 on the 3rd of the month).

The rules used to be more restrictive in this respect and not all staff may be aware of these new rules, so it may be worthwhile showing the NRE page which shows this if a member of staff doesn't believe you.

It's not defined exactly what "unable to complete" means, e.g. whether you are "unable to complete" if you choose to have a meal and a drink in a station pub along the way for example! But if you buy a ticket at 22:00 and there are no more services to get you all the way to your destination on that railway day (till 04:29), then that is a clear example of when you are "unable to complete" the journey.

Also, there are a few lines which do have true overnight services - Sleeper services for one (the Caledonian and GWR sleepers), as well as TransPennine Express between Manchester and Leeds, and Thameslink between Bedford and Brighton.
 
Last edited:

Haywain

Veteran Member
Joined
3 Feb 2013
Messages
14,877
But if you buy a ticket at 22:00 and there are no more services to get you all the way to your destination on that railway day (till 04:29), then that is a clear example of when you are "unable to complete" the journey.
However, it is important to note that unable to complete is not the same as unable to start. The journey MUST be started on the first day of validity (which last until 04:29 the following morning).
 

island

Veteran Member
Joined
30 Dec 2010
Messages
15,982
Location
0036
There are no set rules as to where you must stay - the rule is simply that all travel must be completed by 04:29 on the third day (e.g. if your ticket's "valid on" date was the 1st of the month, you'd have to finish all travel by 04:29 on the 3rd of the month).

The rules used to be more restrictive in this respect and not all staff may be aware of these new rules, so it may be worthwhile showing the NRE page which shows this if a member of staff doesn't believe you.

It's not defined exactly what "unable to complete" means, e.g. whether you are "unable to complete" if you choose to have a meal and a drink in a station pub along the way for example! But if you buy a ticket at 22:00 and there are no more services to get you all the way to your destination on that railway day (till 04:29), then that is a clear example of when you are "unable to complete" the journey.
Whilst I don’t wish to be unnecessarily pedantic, the rule which you helpfully linked above says something a little different – it says if “your journey cannot be completed”, not “if you are unable to complete your journey”. This, to me, says that if a train is available to you to take to get all the way to your destination on the date printed on your ticket (or by 04:29 the next day) you need to use it. If you could complete your journey on day 1 but choose to delay your journey to have a meal or a drink, you put yourself on shaky ground, as it wouldn’t be true that your journey cannot be completed,

I agree however that in the scenario described previously the journey cannot be completed. (And for what it’s worth, the rules do not say that you must travel as far as possible on day 1 either; so long as it cannot be completed you would, I think, be able to break it wherever you wished. Doing so very early in the journey may generate difficulty with staff on day 2 though.)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top