Delay compensation on a rover ticket

[BlueFox]

A couple of weeks ago I was delayed just over 30 minutes on a journey from Chester to Carlisle, due to the late running of a London to Glasgow train between Warrington Bank Quay and Carlisle. I was using a 4 days in 8 North West Rover ticket, which cost £72.

I scanned my ticket and applied for compensation via the Virgin website.

Virgin have sent me a voucher for £4. Is that the correct amount, and how do they calculate it for rover tickets?

 

[gray1404]

So this works out at £18 a day. I wonder if they have looked at the price of a walk up ticket for the leg of the journey subject to delay and based the compensation on that amount. If you are not happy with this you could send them an email explaining why and ask them to have another look at it.

 

[bb21]

£18 a day, so on the assumption of one return journey a day, sum due would be about £4.50, so sounds a little low but there or thereabouts

 

[yorkie]

Virgin have sent me a voucher for £4. Is that the correct amount, and how do they calculate it for rover tickets?

That sounds 'correct' to me, based on approximately one return trip a day (as bb21 says it'd be £4.50 on that basis, but let's be honest you're making more journeys than that, aren't you? )
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So this works out at £18 a day. I wonder if they have looked at the price of a walk up ticket for the leg of the journey subject to delay and based the compensation on that amount.

No they haven't and that wouldn't be reasonable either.

If you are not happy with this you could send them an email explaining why and ask them to have another look at it.

I guess he could but there are no grounds to do so.

 

[bnm]

There are no explicit rules published for delay compensation when a Rover ticket is used.

Basically, you get what you are given.

 

[BlueFox]

The reason I asked the question is because I thought it would be treated as an £18 return ticket, so I expected to get £4.50.
I was surprised that it was only £4 and wondered how they'd worked that out. I'm not going to complain about the extra 50p, I just wondered if there was a different formula used for rovers.


There are some journeys where the NW rover is cheaper than the cheapest walk up single ticket. I wonder how someone would get on if they insisted they only used the rover for a single journey, and wanted 50% of the ticket price back after a 30 minute delay?

 

[Haywain]

There are some journeys where the NW rover is cheaper than the cheapest walk up single ticket. I wonder how someone would get on if they insisted they only used the rover for a single journey, and wanted 50% of the ticket price back after a 30 minute delay?

It is not a single ticket, so does not qualify for the same compensation as a single ticket. On the basis you quote, what would you expect if the person was dusing it for the same journey on each of 4 days and was delayed by more than 30 minutes on every occasion?

 

[BlueFox]

It is not a single ticket, so does not qualify for the same compensation as a single ticket. On the basis you quote, what would you expect if the person was dusing it for the same journey on each of 4 days and was delayed by more than 30 minutes on every occasion?

I have no idea, that's why I asked the question.

There really should be some proper published rules about this though, so people know what to expect. If, for example, someone bought a rover because it was slightly cheaper than one single ticket, they would need to know that the delay repay would not be the same as it would if they'd bought the single instead.

 

[bb21]

The reason I asked the question is because I thought it would be treated as an £18 return ticket, so I expected to get £4.50.
I was surprised that it was only £4 and wondered how they'd worked that out. I'm not going to complain about the extra 50p, I just wondered if there was a different formula used for rovers.

Assuming that the ticket is used for one return journey per day of validity is fairly common practice AIUI. However even with season tickets different TOCs have slightly different calculations. For example, with a weekly season, some TOCs assume that you make 10 single journeys, whereas with some others, 10.5 single journeys.

There are some journeys where the NW rover is cheaper than the cheapest walk up single ticket. I wonder how someone would get on if they insisted they only used the rover for a single journey, and wanted 50% of the ticket price back after a 30 minute delay?

They should be declined imo. The option to purchase the single/return fare was available. The fact that they purchased an unlimited travel ticket is the only factor to be considered. The fact that it was only used for one journey is the passenger's choice, neither here nor there for the purpose of compensation calculation, for which purpose set formulae exist for consistency reasons.

Discretion, of course, is always available.

 

[BlueFox]

The option to purchase the single/return fare was available. The fact that they purchased an unlimited travel ticket is the only factor to be considered. The fact that it was only used for one journey is the passenger's choice, neither here nor there for the purpose of compensation calculation, for which purpose set formulae exist for consistency reasons.

But how is the average rail user supposed to know this, if there are no published rules for delay compensation for rover tickets?

 

[bb21]

But how is the average rail user supposed to know this, if there are no published rules for delay compensation for rover tickets?

Why then would the average rail user assume that compensation for Ranger/Rover tickets would be paid out in line with the policy for single/return tickets?

 

[BlueFox]

Why then would the average rail user assume that compensation for Ranger/Rover tickets would be paid out in line with the policy for single/return tickets?

Why wouldn't they?

The lack of information is the problem.

As far as I'm concerned there could be no compensation at all on rover tickets and it wouldn't stop me buying them because of the value they offer. But other people might just see them as a different way to get from A-B and expect the same as they'd get with a normal single/return ticket.

 

[bb21]

Then the correct course of action is to lobby the train companies to make such information clearer, not to assume something that is not mentioned anywhere in the public domain.

Condition 42 and Delay Repay schemes only make explicit mentions of single/return tickets, not "a ticket used for a single/return journey only". Season ticket arrangements are also detailed. If anyone were to make assumptions about Rover tickets that are valid over several days then I think it would be reasonable to assume that the arrangement would be similar to that for season tickets. I don't expect anyone to assume that making only one journey on a season ticket entitles him to delay compensation in line with that for single/return tickets.