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Delay repay - How to succeed first time?

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Failed Unit

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I hate claiming deley repay, it is complex, time consuming and designed to put you off claiming.

I have found that most journeys with connections involved get rejected.

For example recent rejection by LNER. We have checked our records and found that the 0915 Leeds - Stevenage service was only 8 minutes late therefore you are not entitled to any compensation. This is correct it arrived at Stevenage at 1111 on this day, my connection to Welwyn Garden City departed at 1110. They could see from my ticket that the journey was between to Welwyn Garden City. I booked the ticket on thier website so they could see that my connection was impossible. The train should have arrived at 1103 and 7 minutes is valid for a connection at Stevenage.

I appealled immediately - they said they would reply in 10 working days. 1 month later nothing.

I have complained - nothing.

Normally I would give up - but the tickets value was £160. Anyone know how to get journeys where missed connections due to late running approved? GTR are just as bad at rejecting them, but thier appeal systems is even worse in the fact you need to submit the entire claim again. Everything including ticket numbers, photo of tickets etc.

Most of my journeys involve at least 1 connection, missing it can cause delays of greater than 2 hours on my most common journeys because of the infrequent EMR timetable. But any tips to get delay repay passed first time would be welcome as I am losing the will to live on this now. I will write to my MP (as he is the transport minster) but don't really expect him to look at a more consumer friendly delay repay system.
 
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Brissle Girl

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I have had no problem with the type of delay repay claim you describe, either with XC or GWR. There is room on both to describe the delay, and I’ve very clearly set out the times of the delayed train, missed connection and new arrival time. Maybe your case was reviewed by an inexperienced member of staff - I can’t believe it is LNER policy to deliberately reject valid claims, as this will only lead to more work dealing with appeals, and run the risk of a much bigger review exercise when (as would inevitably happen) they were rumbled.
 

Hadders

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I generally don’t have an issue making claims.

I write down my proposed itinerary on a sheet of paper along with what actually happens, attach my tickets to this sheet of paper, take a photo of the whole lot and submit this as the ticket upload.
 

Marton

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I don’t have problem ususlly with split tickets and connections.

The only time I have had a problem was recently when I used Northern, TPE and LNER. The middle journey was an option of TPE or Northern. The Northern was, in fact, cancelled. The LNER I was booked on was late so I sent the claim there but it bounced to TPE and then Northern. Each time I was copied into the email passing the claim and told the next TOC. Eventually I did get the repay, just a couple of emails extra from me.
 

E100

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I’ve generally found it’s best to write with a covering letter for anything like this where there might be some doubt or chance they mess up with connections.
 

thejuggler

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Once you get to multiple operators and changes it is easy to say 'computer says no' as the claim systems are terrible for handling these situations.

Delay repay should be centralised. You provide your details to one website, it is then down to that service to do all the chasing.
 

Failed Unit

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Looking at a few of the comments. Writing in rather then using the computer form may be the answer. 250 characters is short. But I always put them entire journey in. Like in this example explicitly said the train I planned to get and the one I did get as a result of the delay. I don’t think LNER read the free text and just saw the train was 8 minutes late - case closed.
 

WesternLancer

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Looking at a few of the comments. Writing in rather then using the computer form may be the answer. 250 characters is short. But I always put them entire journey in. Like in this example explicitly said the train I planned to get and the one I did get as a result of the delay. I don’t think LNER read the free text and just saw the train was 8 minutes late - case closed.
Yes, if you are fed up, write to your MP - they will have a member of staff that can pursue it - so see what they get, esp if they are a Transport minister (in fact if you reallly like, book an appt to see them at a surgery - time consuming I know, but making the Transport minister - as you are lucky that they are your MP - face this would be useful to the rest of us - such ministers, are after all, v happy to crow about D-R and how good it is when they issue those churnalism press releases each time they issue a new franchise with the 'wonderful list of benefits' that passengers will get - D-R always being cited as one of them - next time they might go back to the office and tell the civil servant that they had to spend part of their constituency weekend learning from a passenger that the TOC seemed unable to process even a simple D-R claim involving a change of train and maybe the civil servant could take steps to stop such things in future!)
 

D365

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Best way to chase up LNER delay repay is on Twitter, I've found that they don't tend to reply to emails. However if you send them a tweet with your case number and explain the situation, their social media staff will usually be very helpful.
 

WesternLancer

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Best way to chase up LNER delay repay is on Twitter, I've found that they don't tend to reply to emails. However if you send them a tweet with your case number and explain the situation, their social media staff will usually be very helpful.
Sad, as that's bonkers. How can org's justify having a heirarchy of communication like that? If you have a method published, then you need a process to deal with people who use it, be that phone, e-mail, letter, twitter or whatever..
 

D365

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Sad, as that's bonkers. How can org's justify having a heirarchy of communication like that? If you have a method published, then you need a process to deal with people who use it, be that phone, e-mail, letter, twitter or whatever..

Agreed, but at least by contacting them on Twitter they seem more inclined to protect their public reputation.

I've also had a Delay Repay rejection from LNER recently. The system claimed I was delayed by 29 minutes instead of 30. I was 30 minutes late at my destination due to missing my booked Thameslink connection... which I think is definitely worth chasing up on Twitter.
 

Failed Unit

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I will certainly give it a go. But also follow up with my MP. Mainly because I have history with this subject and GTR and how difficult they make the process. I will let people know what the generic response is. But I can also point to a number of reports that show delay repay puts to much onus on the customer, with too many obstacles such as the ticket number, photo copy of the ticket etc. Something that should not be needed on an AP considering you can only use the train you booked on with their booking engine.
 

sheff1

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I can’t believe it is LNER policy to deliberately reject valid claims,

I would like to believe that too, but ....

Virtually all my Delay Repay claims are with Northern, EMR/EMT, XC, TPE and LNER. They have all made the occasional mistake but only LNER have continued (on more than one occasion) to argue the toss when the error was pointed out to them which makes me wonder whether they do, indeed, have a (unofficial ?) policy within the Delay Repay team to reject in the hope that people will give up.

I’ve generally found it’s best to write with a covering letter for anything like this where there might be some doubt or chance they mess up with connections.
The journey described in the OP should result no doubt at all. A train arriving after the connection has left should be something that anyone capable of telling the time could understand. One would hope that staff employed to deal with Delay Repay can tell the time.
 

Mojo

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I saw a Tweet from LNER this afternoon that said anytime you Email or contact them regarding Delay Repay your casefile goes to the back of the queue.
lnerdelayrepay.jpg
 

Failed Unit

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I saw a Tweet from LNER this afternoon that said anytime you Email or contact them regarding Delay Repay your casefile goes to the back of the queue.
I was kindly sent that as well. Shows total contempt to the customer. If they are breaking their own SLA it is pretty bad that they get “the hump” if you chase them up.
 

Hadders

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I recently had a delay repay dispute with West Midlands Trains. They rejected the claim and passed it erroneously to Chiltern. I appealed and they rejected it again and redirected it erroneously to Chiltern. Predictably Chiltern rejected the claim and returned it to WMT.

I attempted to speak to someone at WMT about it. Got an overseas call centre who advised completing the web form - I'd already done this twice. Asked to speak to a supervisor to be told there isn't one. Incredibly they don't have an email address you can send complaints to!!!!

Finally I decided to call them again, got the overseas call centre but insisted on speaking to someone in the UK. After a wait of several minutes I got put through to someone who was most helpful and resolved the issue in seconds.
 

WesternLancer

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I will certainly give it a go. But also follow up with my MP. Mainly because I have history with this subject and GTR and how difficult they make the process. I will let people know what the generic response is. But I can also point to a number of reports that show delay repay puts to much onus on the customer, with too many obstacles such as the ticket number, photo copy of the ticket etc. Something that should not be needed on an AP considering you can only use the train you booked on with their booking engine.
will be interesting to see the update, esp re MP response (given content of subsequent posts and examples, even more so!)
 

30907

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I saw a Tweet from LNER this afternoon that said anytime you Email or contact them regarding Delay Repay your casefile goes to the back of the queue.
Seems to have been deleted? Can you link?
 

David57

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I always send mine in via post, whilst taking a copy of the tickets and a covering letter of times (scheduled, and actual), never had a problem......may take a bit longer, but works every time............
 

Failed Unit

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35B

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I will certainly give it a go. But also follow up with my MP. Mainly because I have history with this subject and GTR and how difficult they make the process. I will let people know what the generic response is. But I can also point to a number of reports that show delay repay puts to much onus on the customer, with too many obstacles such as the ticket number, photo copy of the ticket etc. Something that should not be needed on an AP considering you can only use the train you booked on with their booking engine.
I find the level of grief reported here unbelievable given my experience (usually LNER) is consistently of inside SLA turnarounds, even where there is some complexity in the case.

The worst error I’ve experienced has been in my favour where the TOC correctly told me I was entitled to 50% Delay Repay but gave me a full refund. 6 weeks later, and despite notifying them and getting their agreement that it was an error, they still haven’t clawed it back.
 

SteveM70

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that's bonkers

As are Northern, whose stock response to tweets complaining about delays with DR claims is “if your claim is urgent please ring our customer experience centre (or whatever it’s called this week) and they’ll deal with it”, ie this is how to jump the queue

They’ve also on many occasions blamed the delay in DR claims on “too many passengers making claims”, rather than “we’ve got too few staff” or “we can’t run our trains on time”
 

mikeb42

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Ever heard people referring to "Kafka-esque" experiences and fancied having one yourself? Then try getting the new GWR Delay Repay system to cough up on a claim involving split tickets and a cross-London journey they've bungled*. (*Even when the split's not at a London terminal which seems to really queer the pitch; instead e.g. Bath->Southend split at Reading).

In fact, try getting GWR to pay out correctly on anything recently which isn't trivially simple and neatly aligned with this automated DR system's expectations. I'm still trying to establish whether the web based system is actually a bot with no human input which might explain why it is so astonishingly intransigent.

Not bothering with the standard system and going straight to letter writing seems most likely to succeed. Then it just needs a lot of bloody minded persistence in sending it back repeatedly adding each time a yet-more pedantic explanation of why their initial reasons for refusal are an insult to logic. Refuse to give up. So far that has always got results eventually. Eventually being the operative word as it can take months...
 

Failed Unit

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I got an interesting push back from GTR one claim 2 following my appeal.

because the 2017 Newark Northgate - Stevenage arrived at 2139 you no longer had a valid connection onto the 2140 service. Claim from LNER.

it takes a whole 10 seconds to make a connection at Stevenage but frustrating that I need to fill in the LNER form with the same information as i gave to GTR for them to probably say you have passed the 1 month time limit.
 

WesternLancer

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I got an interesting push back from GTR one claim 2 following my appeal.

because the 2017 Newark Northgate - Stevenage arrived at 2139 you no longer had a valid connection onto the 2140 service. Claim from LNER.

it takes a whole 10 seconds to make a connection at Stevenage but frustrating that I need to fill in the LNER form with the same information as i gave to GTR for them to probably say you have passed the 1 month time limit.
Should not GTR pass it on to LNER for consideration (and thus the start date of the original claim stand)?
 

Failed Unit

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Should not GTR pass it on to LNER for consideration (and thus the start date of the original claim stand)?
That is a good question. The response from GTR certainly didn’t say they would.
Based on the above information we have found, we advise that you claim Delay Repay compensation through London North Eastern Railway as Delay Repay compensation is based on who caused the initial delay on your scheduled full journey as outlined in the National Rail conditions of travel.

I hope I have answered your query as all further questions regarding this claim can be passed to LNER as they caused the initial delay on your full journey.

If anyone takes the above as they will pass it on the it is one less task for me.
 

WesternLancer

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That is a good question. The response from GTR certainly didn’t say they would.


If anyone takes the above as they will pass it on the it is one less task for me.
If they didn't say they would then don't assume they will, obv!

I guess you must write to LNER with it, stating that GTR have told you now to contact LNER and that "in the light of that you will presume that they will understand that the time that has elapsed since you originally raised it is down to the time it has been under consideration with GTR and that I presume LNER will still consider the claim as a consequence of that" or some such form of words.
 

Failed Unit

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If they didn't say they would then don't assume they will, obv!

I guess you must write to LNER with it, stating that GTR have told you now to contact LNER and that "in the light of that you will presume that they will understand that the time that has elapsed since you originally raised it is down to the time it has been under consideration with GTR and that I presume LNER will still consider the claim as a consequence of that" or some such form of words.
Yes agree with that approach. The rail industry certainly don’t make it easy but it will all go in my dossier to Mr Snaaps
 

xotGD

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I got an interesting push back from GTR one claim 2 following my appeal.

because the 2017 Newark Northgate - Stevenage arrived at 2139 you no longer had a valid connection onto the 2140 service. Claim from LNER.

it takes a whole 10 seconds to make a connection at Stevenage but frustrating that I need to fill in the LNER form with the same information as i gave to GTR for them to probably say you have passed the 1 month time limit.
That is strange. I always thought you should claim based on the actual journey made, not a hypothetical journey based on minimum connection times.
 
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