Delay repay/refund for journey abandoned (?) at connection

[choo.choo]

Hello,

I was travelling from Newcastle to Middlesbrough via Darlington on the return part of an Anytime Day Return ticket on Tuesday 06/06/23 due to take the last train of the night, the TPE 22:01 from Newcastle as far as Darlington and changing onto the last Darlington to Middlesbrough train. This was due to get into Middlesbrough at 23:06.

The 22:01 TPE at Newcastle was delayed by around 25 minutes due to the service it was formed from coming in late. We arrived at Darlington around 25 mins late and as a result I missed the connection at Darlington for the last Middlesbrough train of the night.

I continued my journey by private transport (a friend gave me a lift from Darlington) and got back to Middlesbrough around 45 minutes later than expected completing the second half by car.

Am I able to claim any delay repay for this, or refunds, or would I only have been eligible for this had I requested the station staff book me a taxi? I’m not entirely clear on what counts as an abandoned journey in this case so thought it would be best to ask for advice.

Thanks

 

[Watershed]

In a situation like this where you choose to complete a journey 'under your own steam', you can essentially choose whether you'd prefer to claim Delay Repay or a partial refund. It's clearly more advantageous to claim Delay Repay in this case, since a partial refund would get you very little, if anything, back (the fare to Darlington is only marginally cheaper). By contrast, you should get a minimum of 25% of the cost of your return if you claim Delay Repay - and TPE might even calculate the delay as having been longer than 45 minutes and thus decide to award you more.

You would have been eligible to claim a full refund under the remit of 'abandoned journey' if you'd decided to return to Newcastle, which would have been perfectly feasible with the last Newcastle-bound departure from Darlington being around midnight, and a (theoretically) set-down only service just before 1am. The same would have applied if you decided not to return to Newcastle, as long as getting to Darlington served no purpose in relation to your original travel plans. As you ended up making it to Middlesbrough that night, I think that would be difficult to claim and so you can't really claim a full refund.

 

[choo.choo]

In a situation like this where you choose to complete a journey 'under your own steam', you can essentially choose whether you'd prefer to claim Delay Repay or a partial refund. It's clearly more advantageous to claim Delay Repay in this case, since a partial refund would get you very little, if anything, back (the fare to Darlington is only marginally cheaper). By contrast, you should get a minimum of 25% of the cost of your return if you claim Delay Repay - and TPE might even calculate the delay as having been longer than 45 minutes and thus decide to award you more.

You would have been eligible to claim a full refund under the remit of 'abandoned journey' if you'd decided to return to Newcastle, which would have been perfectly feasible with the last Newcastle-bound departure from Darlington being around midnight, and a (theoretically) set-down only service just before 1am. The same would have applied if you decided not to return to Newcastle, as long as getting to Darlington served no purpose in relation to your original travel plans. As you ended up making it to Middlesbrough that night, I think that would be difficult to claim and so you can't really claim a full refund.

Thanks. I was never under the impression a full refund was on the table but given this I’ll see what I can get on delay repay. Perhaps it will cover the petrol back haha.