Delayed and had to buy new ticket

Had an annoying incident last Friday and grateful for any advice on whether I can claim back.
I was travelling from Meadowhall to Cardiff, and was using split tickets. Tickets I held prior to travel were:-
Anytime day single from Meadowhall to Sheffield - £2.10
Advance single from Sheffield to Stockport on the 14:41 East Midlands Trains service - £7.90
Advance single from Stockport to Newport on the 15:39 Transport for Wales service - £29.50
Anytime day single from Newport to Cardiff - £5.30

Things started to go wrong with the journey at Sheffield, with the 14:41 being delayed, arriving at 15:45. This meant I missed my connection.
I was therefore planning to get the 16:39 to Milford Haven. However this was cancelled. Speaking to the platform staff, I was told this was due to a problem with the overhead lines at Wilmslow, so the train had been turned short. I asked him what I should do, as I was worried that if there was a problem with TfW trains getting through I would not be able to get there. He told me to get on the 17:13 Crosscountry service to Cardiff.
During a ticket inspection, I explained the situation to the train manager (delayed, missed connection and had been told by platform staff to take this train), but he just said my ticket was not valid and I had to buy an off peak single from Stockport to Bristol Parkway for £89.95.

Was this correct? My understanding was that if you were told to get a service by a railway employee, you were ok to travel even if your ticket wouldn't normally be valid. Have I misunderstood?

I know I will be able to claim back 100% of my original tickets from EMT due to 1hr+ delay, but do I have any recourse for the £89.95 I spent for an extra ticket? If so, I presume this is direct from Crosscountry? As it happens, this service was late too, so I will get at least 50% back, but would obviously rather get the full whack!

Thanks for any advice.

Assuming you had left sufficient time to change trains had things ran on time you should not have been charged for a new ticket. How long did you leave for changing trains?

Edit: I see they recommend a different TOC. That makes things a little more complicated as they shouldn't have done this if it was possible to get the intended TOC even at cost of further delay. You were travelling with permission of an authorised person but the difficulty would be proving this.

I agree with @mikeg on this. I think the best you can do is write to CrossCountry and appeal to their better nature (existence of which may be questionable) for a refund. At the same time I would be writing to Virgin Trains about the advice given and the consequences of it.

Like stated the issue being is that advance singles are discounted because of their specificity, being you have to catch that train or the next one available with the same TOC whether that meant you would have had a further delay is somewhat disregarded. And it is only valid on the NEXT available service - again advance tickets present problems.

They were right in theory to charge you another ticket, the problem really lies with the platform staff telling you where your ticket was valid as they are not trained and authorised inspectors/collectors.

Personally cross country are perfectly with in their right to decline any refund excluding the delay repay, issue lies with the company and whoever the platform staff work for, proving that all of this even happened might be your biggest hurdle.

The minimum connection time at Stockport was there, so there's no doubt of you being allowed on the next train.

The issue really, in my opinion, is that the station staff should not have blindly given you permission to board the 'next train'. They really should have checked your tickets and, if they felt they wanted to let you on the next train (particularly with it being a different TOC) they should have endorsed it. Not to say you're 'trying it on' of course, but 'the man/woman on the station said I could' gets used as an excuse a lot, and is often difficult to prove in the moment or retrospectively.

Jackoref said:

Had an annoying incident last Friday and grateful for any advice on whether I can claim back.
I was travelling from Meadowhall to Cardiff, and was using split tickets. Tickets I held prior to travel were:-
Anytime day single from Meadowhall to Sheffield - £2.10
Advance single from Sheffield to Stockport on the 14:41 East Midlands Trains service - £7.90
Advance single from Stockport to Newport on the 15:39 Transport for Wales service - £29.50
Anytime day single from Newport to Cardiff - £5.30

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I assume that this was following a valid itinerary?

Did you book through an accredited booking site?

Jackoref said:

Things started to go wrong with the journey at Sheffield, with the 14:41 being delayed, arriving at 15:45. This meant I missed my connection.
I was therefore planning to get the 16:39 to Milford Haven. However this was cancelled. Speaking to the platform staff, I was told this was due to a problem with the overhead lines at Wilmslow, so the train had been turned short. I asked him what I should do, as I was worried that if there was a problem with TfW trains getting through I would not be able to get there. He told me to get on the 17:13 Crosscountry service to Cardiff.
During a ticket inspection, I explained the situation to the train manager (delayed, missed connection and had been told by platform staff to take this train), but he just said my ticket was not valid and I had to buy an off peak single from Stockport to Bristol Parkway for £89.95.

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You were entitled to take later trains. Did you show the platform staff what tickets you had? Did they say ticket acceptance was in place with XC?

If there was a clear understanding of the tickets you held and you were given permission to travel on XC, you are entitled to claim your money back, but doing so may be a challenge.

However if there was a misunderstanding, the position is far from clear, and unfortunately it may be impossible to claim your money back.

Jackoref said:

Was this correct? My understanding was that if you were told to get a service by a railway employee, you were ok to travel even if your ticket wouldn't normally be valid. Have I misunderstood?

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You are right, but are you sure that you and the member of staff came to a clear understanding? My advice in this position would be to obtain a written endorsement if you cannot find anything on NRE to state that acceptance is in place. If no written endorsement is forthcoming, it's best to ask the Guard prior to departure, if possible.

Jackoref said:

I know I will be able to claim back 100% of my original tickets from EMT due to 1hr+ delay, but do I have any recourse for the £89.95 I spent for an extra ticket? If so, I presume this is direct from Crosscountry? As it happens, this service was late too, so I will get at least 50% back, but would obviously rather get the full whack!

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It really depends on exactly what was said.

Biddydiddiy1 said:

Like stated the issue being is that advance singles are discounted because of their specificity, being you have to catch that train or the next one available with the same TOC whether that meant you would have had a further delay is somewhat disregarded. And it is only valid on the NEXT available service - again advance tickets present problems.

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This was nothing to do with the tickets being 'Advance' tickets. There is no "risk" in using Advance tickets for a journey of this nature.

The problem is purely the TOC restriction; this is equally a problem with walk-up fares, not just Advance fares.

Biddydiddiy1 said:

They were right in theory to charge you another ticket, the problem really lies with the platform staff telling you where your ticket was valid as they are not trained and authorised inspectors/collectors.

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This is incorrect; the platform staff are authorised staff. If XC are unhappy with the behaviour of the staff of another company, then they need to take the matter up with the relevant organisations. The question lies with exactly what was said, but unfortunately it sounds like there is no written record of it, so it could be very problematical for either party to prove what happened.

If the passenger had written authority then there is no doubt in my mind that XC would not be allowed to go against that by charging the customer; that would be an internal rail industry matter.

I kept persisting with this, and eventually Virgin agreed to refund my additional ticket. I think this was mainly just to wind things up as they obviously are no longer an active TOC!

The OP was not entitled to take the next Cross Country service, but rather the next Transport for Wales service (as per the TOC restriction on their Advance ticket). However, if they were given permission to travel on the XC service by an authorised member of staff then the new fare should not have been charged. It depends if the member of staff who said to board the XC service knew an Advance ticket routed TfW was being used.

I'm glad this was sorted out in the end and Virgin Trains, paid up for the additional ticket purchased. It is a shame XC were not made to refund it as they can be very harsh towards customers.

It's good to hear you were refunded though it's a shame XC weren't made to pay out, as they were the ones who made the charge. Unfortunately some individuals working for XC are quite nasty as well as not adhering to the relevant conditions regarding authority to travel. I've seen a few of these cases.