Mark Coley
Member
- Joined
- 22 Jul 2019
- Messages
- 5
It seems topical to post today given the media reports today saying people are not claiming when trains are late...
I travelled with Virgin Trains on 15th June 2019 from Wilmslow to Euston. The train, along with all others, was stopped at Milton Keynes and we all had to get off and we spent several hours there (having been told firstly taxis would take us to London, then buses). The line reopened a few hours later.
I'd used Virgin Trains' website the night before to get the tickets to and from London, fixing my outward train (early) then having an off-peak return to come back later that day. There was a single transaction, the return ticket was conditional on being accompanied by an outward advance.
I put in a Delay Repay claim on the way home and a few days later got an automatic refund of the cost of the outward leg only. Then I got an e-mail a few days later asking if I'd put in a duplicate claim as a Delay Repay had already been processed. I replied saying I had a return journey and hadn't been refunded correctly. However, I've been told I had two singles and they don't count as a return journey, even though I bought the journey as a return journey, I started in Wilmslow and returned to Wilmslow, the website let me chose outward and return trains (I sent screen shots to Virgin to show them how their booking engine works), the conditions on the off-peak return ticket say it has to be bought as part of a return journey. However Virgin will have none of it and say I have two singles. I said the whole point of their compensation seems to be to compensate the journey made and I can't believe their management would have tried to argue away their choice to give compensation over and above the national terms and conditions, which I think Virgin's compensation is. I said as far as I was concerned I'd bought a return journey and what Virgin chose to print on the tickets was a matter for Virgin. I had tried to explain it would be impossible the buy the tickets I bought in two separate transactions (as one was conditional on the other) so it had to be a return journey.
Has anyone had any success in sorting this sort of issue out? It seems Virgin are playing with words over what is a single and what isn't. A single that is tied to another single, that has to take you back to your origin station seems very much like a return journey to me, with my simple understanding...
Mark.
I travelled with Virgin Trains on 15th June 2019 from Wilmslow to Euston. The train, along with all others, was stopped at Milton Keynes and we all had to get off and we spent several hours there (having been told firstly taxis would take us to London, then buses). The line reopened a few hours later.
I'd used Virgin Trains' website the night before to get the tickets to and from London, fixing my outward train (early) then having an off-peak return to come back later that day. There was a single transaction, the return ticket was conditional on being accompanied by an outward advance.
I put in a Delay Repay claim on the way home and a few days later got an automatic refund of the cost of the outward leg only. Then I got an e-mail a few days later asking if I'd put in a duplicate claim as a Delay Repay had already been processed. I replied saying I had a return journey and hadn't been refunded correctly. However, I've been told I had two singles and they don't count as a return journey, even though I bought the journey as a return journey, I started in Wilmslow and returned to Wilmslow, the website let me chose outward and return trains (I sent screen shots to Virgin to show them how their booking engine works), the conditions on the off-peak return ticket say it has to be bought as part of a return journey. However Virgin will have none of it and say I have two singles. I said the whole point of their compensation seems to be to compensate the journey made and I can't believe their management would have tried to argue away their choice to give compensation over and above the national terms and conditions, which I think Virgin's compensation is. I said as far as I was concerned I'd bought a return journey and what Virgin chose to print on the tickets was a matter for Virgin. I had tried to explain it would be impossible the buy the tickets I bought in two separate transactions (as one was conditional on the other) so it had to be a return journey.
Has anyone had any success in sorting this sort of issue out? It seems Virgin are playing with words over what is a single and what isn't. A single that is tied to another single, that has to take you back to your origin station seems very much like a return journey to me, with my simple understanding...
Mark.