Avanti West Coast Advance Refunds?

[njr001]

I too emailed the Phil Whittington but received no reply, lucky xydancer who got a response, the saga continues not hearing from the MD I replied to Customer services pointing out that their response did not make sense the reply was to point me to there help page which states if you don’t have an account or experience any other issues using My Account then please fill in the following web form. Make sure you include your booking reference as these claims are processed manually. This is precisely what I did to submit the claim in the first place! Latest response
Dear xxxxx,

We cannot do the change of journey over email and this can only be done on web site and over voice call and since both options are unavailable we cannot do anything about it as of now. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Kind Regards,
Jossemere.

All despite requesting a refund, not a change of journey!

 

[njr001]

Update reply from MD's office Unable to refund as date of travel has already passed.

This despite my original emailed refund request having been acknowledged when only one of the four journeys had taken place, however this was at a time before the policy change not to charge an admin fee for Advances.

I guess it's time to shut up and forget the loss.

 

[alistairlees]

Update reply from MD's office Unable to refund as date of travel has already passed.

This despite my original emailed refund request having been acknowledged when only one of the four journeys had taken place, however this was at a time before the policy change not to charge an admin fee for Advances.

I guess it's time to shut up and forget the loss.

You should persevere. If you applied for a refund of the Advance tickets before travel, and you booked them before 23rd March, but they were for travel on or after 23rd March, then you are entitled to a full refund, without any fees being applied.

 

[njr001]

My tickets were for travel on 14th & 16th March I was following the advice of OP td97 Post No15 who had managed to get a refund for a journey on 13th March

 

[island]

In that case you were outwith the refund entitlement policy which was journeys booked before 0700 23•MCH•20 and travelling after that.

 

[djh2020]

Avanti West Coast processed my refund on the 24th March, have subsequently confirmed that refund is in progress, but here we are in May and I'm still waiting for my refund to be credited, despite following their refund policy including returning unused tickets. I have complained and haven't received any acknowledgement, so I'm just waiting a reasonable period then I'll be contacting the Rail Ombudsman and claiming my full refund and compensation for the distress this has caused me. Anybody out there had the same experience and response from their pathetic customer service.

 

[xydancer]

Avanti West Coast processed my refund on the 24th March, have subsequently confirmed that refund is in progress, but here we are in May and I'm still waiting for my refund to be credited, despite following their refund policy including returning unused tickets. I have complained and haven't received any acknowledgement, so I'm just waiting a reasonable period then I'll be contacting the Rail Ombudsman and claiming my full refund and compensation for the distress this has caused me. Anybody out there had the same experience and response from their pathetic customer service.

I had a mixed experience with them. Some manual applications (before you could do refunds online via My Account) were processed OK, one was very slow and one refused altogether. That last one was only resolved when I got Avanti's CEO office and my MP, who happens to be Minister for Rail, involved - although even the CEO office seemed to be having issues getting the Customer Service to do as requested as well. My applications were all submitted between March 26 and April 2, and all were finally refunded to my bank account by April 23. There did however seem to be no logic to the order any were processed or refunded. It certainly wasn't 'first in, first done'. Indeed, my first submitted was the last to be settled. I suspect yours are somehow lost in their system. But yes, their customer support (there's a misnomer if ever there was one) team is dreadful, and was even before this all started too.

Just a thought, but their Facebook team are usually quite the opposite. Quick to respond and very helpful. Have you tried talking to them to see if they can figure out what is happening. They may be able to look at systems if you give them to appropriate reference numbers.

The online system seems to be working fine, with payments going back into my bank account within 4 or 5 days.

 

[SteveM70]

Finally got a ticket refunded yesterday, it took 38 days, 10 emails and a recorded delivery letter

 

[221129]

I'll be contacting the Rail Ombudsman and claiming my full refund and compensation for the distress this has caused me.

Get a grip. Any request for compensation will be laughed straight out. These are unprecedented times and the workload for the reduced staffing will be through the roof. You just need to be patient.

 

[celdor]

You just need to be patient.

Contacted Avanti on 20 March re an advance ticket for travel on 8 April purchased 16 January.
I have chased this up several times and on 21st May Customer resolutions said they could
see no reason why my refund had not been sent. I have chased again today.
80 days how patient do I have to be?