Crosscountry Delay Repay & Split Tickets

Randomer · 28 Jun 2019

So I'm not entirely surprised having read several other threads to a similar theme but Cross Country (XC) have just denied a delay repay request for a journey of mine on split tickets only counting the portion of the journey I was travelling with them rather than the whole journey.

This was on a combination of tickets bought through Train Split with (a combination of 1st Advances and an off peak single to finish the journey for which no 1st class or advance tickets was avaliable.) To me this in a fairly simple example of a single journey made with a combination of tickets in line with NRCOT 14.1.

Journey from Birmingham New Street to Exmouth on 12th June with details as follows:
- Depart Birmingham New Street 1117
- Due to Arrive Exmouth 1419
- 1117 from Birmingham New Street delayed arriving in Exeter St Davids at 1418. (This was due to an incident meaning the train was restarted from Leeds with a different unit being delayed and awaiting staff in Birmingham)
- Missed 1352 and 1416 connections from Exeter St David's to Exmouth. Took next available train at 1452 to Exmouth arriving at 1519.
- Arrived 60 minutes later than itinerary. Total cost of tickets was £44.70 so delay repay amount due is 50% or £22.35.
- XC have replied to my email saying my delay was 30-59 minutes (so the Birmingham-Exeter portion of the journey) and thus my compensation paid is £10.26. This works out as 25% of the advance ticket portion of the journey.

I have replied to the email quoting NRCOT 14.1 and there passenger charter which makes no distinction to journeys only partially on there service and am awaiting a response. Having read other threads previously I understand XC have form for doing this to passengers including other members.

My question for other members is has anyone else has any success at dealing with this without going to the ombudsman? (I am prepared to do this on a point of principle even for the fairly small amount involved)

RailUK Forums

ForTheLoveOf · 28 Jun 2019

Randomer said:
So I'm not entirely surprised having read several other threads to a similar theme but Cross Country (XC) have just denied a delay repay request for a journey of mine on split tickets only counting the portion of the journey I was travelling with them rather than the whole journey.

This was on a combination of tickets bought through Train Split with (a combination of 1st Advances and an off peak single to finish the journey for which no 1st class or advance tickets was avaliable.) To me this in a fairly simple example of a single journey made with a combination of tickets in line with NRCOT 14.1.

Journey from Birmingham New Street to Exmouth on 12th June with details as follows:
- Depart Birmingham New Street 1117
- Due to Arrive Exmouth 1419
- 1117 from Birmingham New Street delayed arriving in Exeter St Davids at 1418. (This was due to an incident meaning the train was restarted from Leeds with a different unit being delayed and awaiting staff in Birmingham)
- Missed 1352 and 1416 connections from Exeter St David's to Exmouth. Took next available train at 1452 to Exmouth arriving at 1519.
- Arrived 60 minutes later than itinerary. Total cost of tickets was £44.70 so delay repay amount due is 50% or £22.35.
- XC have replied to my email saying my delay was 30-59 minutes (so the Birmingham-Exeter portion of the journey) and thus my compensation paid is £10.26. This works out as 25% of the advance ticket portion of the journey.

I have replied to the email quoting NRCOT 14.1 and there passenger charter which makes no distinction to journeys only partially on there service and am awaiting a response. Having read other threads previously I understand XC have form for doing this to passengers including other members.

My question for other members is has anyone else has any success at dealing with this without going to the ombudsman? (I am prepared to do this on a point of principle even for the fairly small amount involved)

Yes, I have had success every time so far when I have escalated it internally within CrossCountry.

If you still haven't got anywhere after 14 days then I would go straight to issuing a Letter Before Action. It's simply not on trying to fob people off like this - and there is no conceivable way at all they can claim you weren't making one journey when you booked one journey, not several, and you missed several connections as a result of their train failures.

I'm happy to help you with any difficulties or questions you may have for this one

yorkie · 28 Jun 2019

Randomer said:
So I'm not entirely surprised having read several other threads to a similar theme but Cross Country (XC) have just denied a delay repay request for a journey of mine on split tickets only counting the portion of the journey I was travelling with them rather than the whole journey.

This was on a combination of tickets bought through Train Split with (a combination of 1st Advances and an off peak single to finish the journey for which no 1st class or advance tickets was avaliable.) To me this in a fairly simple example of a single journey made with a combination of tickets in line with NRCOT 14.1.

Journey from Birmingham New Street to Exmouth on 12th June with details as follows:
- Depart Birmingham New Street 1117
- Due to Arrive Exmouth 1419
- 1117 from Birmingham New Street delayed arriving in Exeter St Davids at 1418. (This was due to an incident meaning the train was restarted from Leeds with a different unit being delayed and awaiting staff in Birmingham)
- Missed 1352 and 1416 connections from Exeter St David's to Exmouth. Took next available train at 1452 to Exmouth arriving at 1519.
- Arrived 60 minutes later than itinerary. Total cost of tickets was £44.70 so delay repay amount due is 50% or £22.35.
- XC have replied to my email saying my delay was 30-59 minutes (so the Birmingham-Exeter portion of the journey) and thus my compensation paid is £10.26. This works out as 25% of the advance ticket portion of the journey.

I have replied to the email quoting NRCOT 14.1 and there passenger charter which makes no distinction to journeys only partially on there service and am awaiting a response. Having read other threads previously I understand XC have form for doing this to passengers including other members.

My question for other members is has anyone else has any success at dealing with this without going to the ombudsman? (I am prepared to do this on a point of principle even for the fairly small amount involved)

Forward your booking confirmation (handily this details all tickets used) and simply state that delay repay applies to your journey; your journey was delayed by 60 minutes and cost £44.70 (as shown in the email below) and therefore the delay repay compensation due is £22.35.

State that you hope this clears up any confusion on their part, and that you hope you don't have to take the case to the Ombudsman.

XC do try it on, but if you persist they do tend to pay out. It's either a mistake they make repeatedly due to incompetence, or a deliberate tactic to reduce payments. I am not sure which it is, but I struggle to believe any company can repeatedly make the same mistakes by accident.

Randomer · 28 Jun 2019

Yorkie, I forwarded the booking confirmation as part of the original delay repay email because I thought they might try it on.

The plot thickens . I was bored and so decided to phone them in addition to the email. Member of staff on the phone stated that I was correct in my assumption how they had originally calculated the delay repay.

More interestingly they then stated that there policy had previously been to only pay on the delayed part of the journey on split tickets, which is an interesting admission in itself. Its not like the NR COC were different to the NR COT in this regard!

She then went on to state that there policy has recently changed to paying the delay repay due for the whole journey on a combination of tickets, admitted when asked it was due to the number of cases being taken to the ombudsman and stated that I should have a new email by the end of the evening with the correct amount. Also stated she would speak to the member of staff who had processed the original claim to restate the change in policy.

Obviously will not be counting my chickens until the amount is in my bank account but a very interesting conversation on the less.

ForTheLoveOf · 28 Jun 2019

yorkie said:
It's either a mistake they make repeatedly due to incompetence, or a deliberate tactic to reduce payments.

I have previously been told by a Customer Services Manager that it is their policy to pay out only on the "delayed portion" of the journey, but there also seems to be some consideration taken of whether or not the "non-delayed portion" was on CrossCountry services.

A very odd policy which has no basis whatsoever in the NRCoT or their Charter and raises far more questions than it answers, e.g. in respect of why they have no qualms in paying compensation on the full value of through tickets for which only a "portion" of the journey has been delayed.

If what @Randomer has been told is true then this is a very welcome development, as it was quite annoying always having to appeal inevitably denied compensation claims. Hopefully we will see no more such rejections by other train companies.

What is, of course, the significant disappointment (but not surprise) in this all is that it is not possible to prosecute CrossCountry for wilful evasion of debts, à la TIL and RoRA!

Randomer · 28 Jun 2019

ForTheLoveOf said:
but there also seems to be some consideration taken of whether or not the "non-delayed portion" was on CrossCountry services. A very odd policy which has no basis whatsoever in the NRCoT or their Charter.

I don't think I could definitely infer that from the conversation but in my case the connecting service was GWR so this would seem to be the case.

yorkie said:
It's either a mistake they make repeatedly due to incompetence, or a deliberate tactic to reduce payments. I am not sure which it is, but I struggle to believe any company can repeatedly make the same mistakes by accident.

I absolutely believe it to be a deliberate policy made in order to reduce payments, it has happened to too many people to be anything done in error. My thoughts turn to at what level the policy was written at and whether the introduction of the Ombudsman has made a more senior person in XC take notice of the policy and its lack of compliance with there own customer charter.

ForTheLoveOf · 28 Jun 2019

Randomer said:
I absolutely believe it to be a deliberate policy made in order to reduce payments, it has happened to too many people to be anything done in error. My thoughts turn to at what level the policy was written at and whether the introduction of the Ombudsman has made a more senior person in XC take notice of the policy and its lack of compliance with there own customer charter.

I agree - a policy like this is not simply introduced by an "underling" who deals with the claims. There has to have been some level of corporate connivance on behalf of the "higher-ups". As I say, it's a great injustice that passengers don't have the powers to investigate and prosecute CrossCountry for this, whilst XC can do the reverse to passengers who pay the incorrect fare even by accident or unknowingly.

Hadders · 28 Jun 2019

Randomer said:
She then went on to state that there policy has recently changed to paying the delay repay due for the whole journey on a combination of tickets

I agree that they appear to have changed things. I've had quite a few XC claims over the last couple of years using a combination of tickets. They definitely used to only pay out on the delayed portion, and would fully pay up if you escalated, however more recently I've had every claim paid fully first time.

yorkie · 28 Jun 2019

Randomer said:
...More interestingly they then stated that there policy had previously been to only pay on the delayed part of the journey on split tickets, which is an interesting admission in itself. Its not like the NR COC were different to the NR COT in this regard!

She then went on to state that there policy has recently changed to paying the delay repay due for the whole journey on a combination of tickets, admitted when asked it was due to the number of cases being taken to the ombudsman and stated that I should have a new email by the end of the evening with the correct amount. Also stated she would speak to the member of staff who had processed the original claim to restate the change in policy....

Thanks for the update. That's good to hear!

Randomer · 5 Jul 2019

Just to follow up on this I received the full amount due for a 60 min delay (i.e. the total cost of the journey) from XC via BACS transfer earlier this week.

Pleased that it took much less effort than I supposed, two emails and one phone call.

Hopefully other people with less knowledge about ticketing will receive the amount due by there own passenger charter going forward without having to challenge the amounts due.

Dhassell · 6 Jul 2019

Glad to hear you had a positive outcome in the end. It seems slightly annoying every person has a different outcome... I had no issue getting XC to pay out for the full journey between Glasgow Central to Weston-Super-Mare after a two hour delay at Bristol Temple Meads, this was only back in April! (VTWC advance, a XC advance single between Wolverhampton and Cheltenham and an advance single between Cheltenham and Weston-Super-Mare).

maxbarnish · 6 Jul 2019

I think XC may just be rather inconsistent. I had something quite similar but there was no issue. A cancelled train at Exeter St Davids caused a half hour delay which in turn caused missed connection onto Virgin at well it was meant to be Stafford but became Crewe and then onto AT Wales as it was, resulting in an over an hour delay into Llandudno Junction - no issues at all, got 100 percent leg as delay. I agree with the advice given in previous posts

Crosscountry Delay Repay & Split Tickets

Randomer

Member

RailUK Forums

ForTheLoveOf

Established Member

yorkie

Forum Staff

Randomer

Member

ForTheLoveOf

Established Member

Randomer

Member

ForTheLoveOf

Established Member

Hadders

Veteran Member

yorkie

Forum Staff

Randomer

Member

Dhassell

Member

maxbarnish

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