Complex Delay Repay Claim Involving Outboundary Travelcard

[rhizomergence]

Hey, I travelled yesterday on a journey involving a somewhat strange collection of tickets, and I’m wondering what my delay repay entitlements are.

Journey from Deal to Cambridge
Intended itinerary:
19:26 Deal to St. Pancras arriving 20:54
21:39 King’s Cross to Cambridge arriving 22:31

Actual itinerary:
19:26 service was delayed, arriving at St. Pancras at 21:34
22:09 King’s Cross to Cambridge, actual arrival 23:07

Tickets used to complete journey:
Super off peak day travelcard, Cambridge to London Zones 1-6 (return portion)
Super off peak day return, London Terminals to Dover Priory any permitted (return portion)
Off peak day return, Deal to Dover Priory (outbound portion)

(I got the travelcard separately instead of getting a through ticket since I had a few errands to run in the morning. I was originally planning to return from Dover Priory but I enjoyed a hike to Deal so took the train from there instead, and I bought a return since it was only 20p more than a single and I’m a bit of a hoarder for CCSTs.)

So my questions are: how is delay repay calculated for when outboundary travelcards are involved? Is it OK to use tickets purchased at different times, from different vendors, as one split ticket itinerary for the purposes of delay repay (especially an outbound portion of one return ticket with the return portions of others)? Should I expect (both on paper and in practice) to be able to claim for the full journey, or should I cut my losses and claim for just a portion (for example the Dover Priory to London Terminals ticket only)?

I know there’s another thread on delay repay right now but that one discusses what constitutes one journey - I believe my journey from Deal back to Cambridge is indeed one journey since I didn’t have any excessively long connections, didn’t leave the stations (aside from walking STP to KGX) and caught the fastest services possible.

 

[Bletchleyite]

So my questions are: how is delay repay calculated for when outboundary travelcards are involved?

Usually the Travelcard (or any other ticket offering unlimited travel on one day) is treated as a return ticket even if it has been used for more than that, on the basis that the vast majority of people who buy Travelcards are using them to make one return journey and so that's a sensible default.

Is it OK to use tickets purchased at different times, from different vendors, as one split ticket itinerary for the purposes of delay repay (especially an outbound portion of one return ticket with the return portions of others)?

Yes.

Should I expect (both on paper and in practice) to be able to claim for the full journey, or should I cut my losses and claim for just a portion (for example the Dover Priory to London Terminals ticket only)?

Provided the itinerary respects minimum connection and cross London transfer times, it can be treated as one journey. For future reference you may find a Boundary Zone 6 rather than London Terminals ticket to be cheaper, though.

 

[Hadders]

There's no problemm claiming with this combination of tickets. You'll need to claim for a 30 minute delay from Southeastern as they caused the initial delay.

I've not used Southeastern's Delay Repay site for some time so I don't know if it allows more than one ticket to be entered as part of a claim but if it doesn't lay all the tickets out and take one photo of them and upload that. Add the prices together and use that. When it asks for the ticket number use the ticket number of the Deal to St Pancras ticket as that ticket was responsible for the delay.

 

[Watershed]

Day Travelcards are treated as equivalent to return tickets for Delay Repay purposes. There is no requirement for tickets to be purchased at the same time, from the same retailer, or indeed in the same format for you to be considered as making one through journey. It does make things slightly more complicated if you want to apply for a refund due to disruption, but that's the only real difference.

You are absolutely eligible to claim Delay Repay based on the combined value of your tickets. If you have difficulty submitting your claim through Southeastern's website you can always contact their customer services to get them to do it manually, or you could send in a claim by post - though remember to get proof of posting from a Post Office if you do this, just in case it should get lost/misplaced somewhere along the way.

 

[rhizomergence]

Thanks everyone. Was just wondering also, hypothetically (since I do journeys like this frequently involving strange combinations of tickets), if a split ticket is done across a combination of single and return tickets (for instance if I indeed got a single from Deal to Dover Priory), how are the rules applied for calculating say a 30 min delay repay? 25% of the values of the return tickets plus 50% of the values of the singles?

For future reference you may find a Boundary Zone 6 rather than London Terminals ticket to be cheaper, though.

I believe Boundary Zone 6 tickets aren’t valid on the HS1 line between St. Pancras and Dover, is that correct (or perhaps more accurately that the HS1 line isn’t in the zones so the travelcard wouldn’t cover the portion “within” the zones)? In any case I only saw an off-peak boundary zone 6 rather than a super-off-peak so it wouldn’t have been cheaper anyway.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I believe Boundary Zone 6 tickets aren’t valid on the HS1 line between St. Pancras and Dover, is that correct (or perhaps more accurately that the HS1 line isn’t in the zones so the travelcard wouldn’t cover the portion “within” the zones)? In any case I only saw an off-peak boundary zone 6 rather than a super-off-peak so it wouldn’t have been cheaper anyway.

Sorry, yes, that's correct, I missed that HS1 would be involved.

 

[rhizomergence]

There is no requirement for tickets to be purchased at the same time, from the same retailer, or indeed in the same format for you to be considered as making one through journey

Does seem to have some potential interesting effects though. For example if you’re making a long distance journey A-B-C-D-A i.e. with multiple overnight stops on the outbound leg (instead of on the return, where you could take advantage of the month validity and multiple break of journeys), you might find it more economical to purchase separate open returns A-B, B-C, C-D, which results in a potential delay repay claim for D-A potentially being for a much more expensive ticket combination than a single fare from D-A (while also restricting you to certain routes, which could cause even more confusion, say if your fastest alternative when faced with a delay is to take another route that doesn’t call at C or B).

Actually, would said return journey be eligible for delay repay if it isn’t via a mapped permitted route?

 

[Watershed]

Thanks everyone. Was just wondering also, hypothetically (since I do journeys like this frequently involving strange combinations of tickets), if a split ticket is done across a combination of single and return tickets (for instance if I indeed got a single from Deal to Dover Priory), how are the rules applied for calculating say a 30 min delay repay? 25% of the values of the return tickets plus 50% of the values of the singles?

Yes, exactly. You can mix any combination of ticket types, be they singles, returns, season tickets, rangers, rovers, zonal tickets etc. or even PAYG.

Obviously the more complicated the ticket combination, the less likely you'll be able to submit a claim easily through an online form.

Does seem to have some potential interesting effects though. For example if you’re making a long distance journey A-B-C-D-A i.e. with multiple overnight stops on the outbound leg (instead of on the return, where you could take advantage of the month validity and multiple break of journeys), you might find it more economical to purchase separate open returns A-B, B-C, C-D, which results in a potential delay repay claim for D-A potentially being for a much more expensive ticket combination than a single fare from D-A (while also restricting you to certain routes, which could cause even more confusion, say if your fastest alternative when faced with a delay is to take another route that doesn’t call at C or B).

Entirely possible as you say. The fact that you bought a more expensive combination of tickets than the cheapest through fare wouldn't affect your eligibility for DR. You have the right to require the TOC at fault to re-route you via the fastest available route (which may mean lifting the requirement to stop at split stations) if the anticipated delay is more than an hour, but there's no compulsion to exercise that right and in many cases it wouldn't be honoured anyway.

Actually, would said return journey be eligible for delay repay if it isn’t via a mapped permitted route?

As long as it could reasonably said to constitute one journey, then yes. In fact it's often the case that multiple tickets are required to travel via the fastest route.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Actually, would said return journey be eligible for delay repay if it isn’t via a mapped permitted route?

I can see no reason why not. Valid tickets are held to complete the intended journey.

 

[EUC]

Actually, would said return journey be eligible for delay repay if it isn’t via a mapped permitted route?

If you've got a return ticket from Euston to Birmingham, and another from Birmingham to Sheffield, I can see no reason why you shouldn't claim delay repay if your itinerary in either direction is late.