Boundary Zone Ticket Refund Query

[MikeWM]

Today I wanted to do some stuff in London, and also visit Uckfield. So I purchased a Travelcard and a Boundary Zone 6 - Uckfield from Ely and set off.

However, the train I intended to catch from East Croydon to Oxted to pick up the Uckfield service never got out of the platform at East Croydon due to a train fault (this one on RTT).

Catching the next service would have meant getting to Uckfield an hour late, which for various reasons I didn't want to do. So I abandoned the idea of travelling to Uckfield.

The ticket office at East Croydon obviously couldn't refund the BZ6-Uckfield ticket (different TOC from that which sold me the ticket), but they stamped it 'unable to travel'.

So, now I'm confused, not least because I'm not sure what scenario this is classified as. Did I never start the journey, or with this being a boundary zone ticket does it count as abandoning the journey part-way through?.

And if I take this ticket to Ely ticket office in the next few days, am I:

- Due a full refund (because I never started the journey due to a cancellation?)
- Due a full refund minus admin fee (which given the ticket is precisely £10, would be a refund of exactly zero!)
- Not due a refund at all (because I 'abandoned' a 'part-completed' journey?)

?

 

[Wallsendmag]

I'd say full refund, no charges as it wasn't your fault

 

[Bletchleyite]

East Croydon is inside the zones, so you never travelled on the ticket. It is therefore unused, so the first one (full refund due to cancellation).

FWIW if you give up part-way on a journey due to disruption and return home* a full refund is still due because the railway never got you where you were going. It's only a discretionary refund (where you decided to give up for reasons not related to the railway) where it wouldn't.

* Back to the origin on the ticket

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Concur with @Wallsendmag and @Bletchleyite .

In similar circumstances, I've been able to get a full refund on those tickets that weren't used at all, part of a split ticket itinerary, this having been due to a broken down train at Warrington en route to Glasgow.

Might well have to submit your refund claim at Ely (where you presumably got your BZ6 - Uckfield tickets from) possibly within 28 days of the date of the incident.

Helpful that East Croydon have stamped the relevant ticket(s) 'Unable to travel".

 

[MikeWM]

Ok, good to hear, thanks all. I was under the impression that once you'd started the journey *and you could conceivably complete it - even if that resulted in you being too late to do whatever you actually wanted to do!*, your only 'get some money back' option was completing the journey and then claiming Delay Repay. And I wasn't sure if the fact it was a Boundary Zone ticket complicated the question or not

I'll try at Ely in the next few days and report back...

-------------

Result - full refund issued, no hassle Did it at Cambridge though as Ely ticket office had shut early. I should say I've always found the ticket office staff at Cambridge to be pretty uniformly excellent.

 

[David Goddard]

Well done. Your experience at Ely would have been the same - the staff there are experienced and excellent!