Delay repay conundrum with 0915 RDG-BHM today on Cross Country Trains

Travelling up to Liverpool today, Reading-Birmingham New Street 9915-1051 scheduled times, then I'd get the 1234 from Birmingham to Liverpool arr Lime Street at 1418.

So get told there's been a fatality on the line between Oxford & Banbury & all trains were cancelled for the foreseeable.

I asked someone at Oxford & they advised getting a Chiltern Railway to Haddenham & Thame Parkway then go to Banbury or Leamington Spa & hopefully the Cross Country service there to Birmingham.

I did this & took 1011 from Oxford to Haddenham which arrived at 1049 which meant I had to wait for the 1141 to Banbury/Leamington Spa or Birmingham Moor Street.

I got off at Leamington at 1228 to get the Cross Country to Birmingham New Street which arrived at 1314, meaning I had a delay of 2h23m, so enough to get full refund.

Should I have stayed at Oxford until the fatality was cleared?

And have a query on the Birmingham to Liverpool leg of the journey. This was a separate itinerary as London North Western hadn't released advance tickets for 25th May when I bought my Reading to Birmingham tickets

Because of the delay in arriving at Birmingham it means I missed my booked 1234 service to Liverpool, the following service was another 25mins Kate leaving Birmingham & then was terminated at Liverpool South Parkway, so had to get a Northern service which meant I got to Liverpool at 1600 a delay of 1h42m.

But the actual 1234 was only delayed by 13mina. Can I still claim ant delay repay on the LNWR leg of the journey.

I have to be entitled to some compensation as my journey took 6h45 instead of 4hrs.

Ant advice would be appreciated

All were advance single tickets, cross country split at Banbury & the Birmingham to Liverpool both advance singles no splitting

It's one journey from Reading to Liverpool, it doesn't matter that the tickets were booked separately.
Submit all tickets in a claim to Crosscountry.

You were making a journey from Reading to Liverpool Lime Street, arriving at 14:18.

CrossCountry delayed you resulting in you arriving at Liverpool Lime Street at 16:00.

You may use a combination of tickets to make a journey. Delay Repay applies to the journey not the individual tickets used. So submit a claim for the overall delay to CrossCountry.

DanielDeronda said:

Should I have stayed at Oxford until the fatality was cleared?

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When disruption occurs you will be given what appears to be the best advice at that time. What's best can sometimes change minutes later but it would be easy to give better advice if hindsight was available.

Hadders said:

You were making a journey from Reading to Liverpool Lime Street, arriving at 14:18.

CrossCountry delayed you resulting in you arriving at Liverpool Lime Street at 16:00.

You may use a combination of tickets to make a journey. Delay Repay applies to the journey not the individual tickets used. So submit a claim for the overall delay to CrossCountry.

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Thanks for that, so my tickets cost £21.80 RDG-BHM & £15.30 for BHM-LIV

ANd Id apply for a 60-119 minute delay, given so was delayed overall by 1h42, so half the return, £18.55.

But I would potentially get £3;.25 more compensation if I applied for a 120min+ delay just on the RDG-BHM journey. Which 1 should I submit as a claim?

DanielDeronda said:

Thanks for that, so my tickets cost £21.80 RDG-BHM & £15.30 for BHM-LIV

ANd Id apply for a 60-119 minute delay, given so was delayed overall by 1h42, so half the return, £18.55.

But I would potentially get £3;.25 more compensation if I applied for a 120min+ delay just on the RDG-BHM journey. Which 1 should I submit as a claim?

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You should claim for the full journey, which is what you did. To Liverpool. You can’t game the system in the way you suggest to maximise your return, serious trouble that way lies if you get found out.

DanielDeronda said:

Thanks for that, so my tickets cost £21.80 RDG-BHM & £15.30 for BHM-LIV

ANd Id apply for a 60-119 minute delay, given so was delayed overall by 1h42, so half the return, £18.55.

But I would potentially get £3;.25 more compensation if I applied for a 120min+ delay just on the RDG-BHM journey. Which 1 should I submit as a claim?

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Your journey was to Liverpool, not Birmingham.

Please note that your journey is made up of single tickets, you'll get it all back in one claim as the delay on arriving at Liverpool was over 60 minutes.
As before, submit the claim to Crosscountry in one go.

Ok all clear now, will submit the claim when I get home. Hopefully should go through smoothly.

I just wanted to check I was following correct processes as I've had issues previously with Delay Repay from XC on seemingly open & shut claims

You will need to explain in detail which route you took and why.

If you had stayed at Oxford your delay would have been less, the first XC north left Oxford at 1109 (Leamington Spa at 1144) and you would have caught your booked train at 1234 from Birmingham had you been on this train. An automatic delay repay calculation is likely to treat you as having taken that train unless you explain otherwise.

Tetchytyke said:

You will need to explain in detail which route you took and why.

If you had stayed at Oxford your delay would have been less, the first XC north left Oxford at 1109 (Leamington Spa at 1144) and you would have caught your booked train at 1234 from Birmingham had you been on this train. An automatic delay repay calculation is likely to treat you as having taken that train unless you explain otherwise.

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CrossCountry sometimes ask that more complex claims are emailed direct to [email protected] so that they can be manually reviewed in the first instance, so the OP may wish to do that.

In your kind of case, with it quite complicated with split tickets I'd email in explaining everything to [email protected] and put "MANUAL DELAY REPAY CLAIM" in the subject bocks.

father_jack said:

with it quite complicated with split tickets

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Split tickets do not make a DR claim complicated. If anything makes the OP's claim complicated it is the route taken which contributed to the delay, and may not be obvious to the claim handler.

don't need to care about the split tickets - all you need to do is submit all tickets after selecting do you hold more than 1 ticket

Ok submitted via email manually & via online form with all 3 advance single tickets & details from realtimetrains.co.uk on the delays to my original itinerary.

Should be ok but fingers crossed!!