Earlier this year, I made a journey from London to Belper via Birmingham. I bought separate London - Birmingham and Birmingham - Belper tickets (Off-Peak Returns). Both tickets were bought at the same time in the same transaction. Unfortunately, the train from Birmingham to Derby was delayed so that I missed the hourly Belper connection at Derby.
As far as I can see, I met all the conditions specified in the NCoT for a split-ticket journey. However, Cross-Country have only paid compensation based on the Birmingham - Belper ticket. I have queried this by phone, and X-C are adamant that I made two separate journeys. The reasons they gave for refusing to recognise this as a case of split ticketing are:
a) London-Birmingham and Birmingham-Derby are different operators
b) there is no through ticket for the journey
Neither of these conditions appear in section 14 of the NCoT. Is it worth me appealing this?
For once, I find myself agreeing with Silverdale here.
This refusal to pay compensation on all tickets used is certainly nothing new - I have experienced it several times with CrossCountry. Each time I have appealed it, and each time they have initially rejected it, sometimes several times more, but they came round to paying in full each time (so far!) without needing to divert the County Court's time from cases where the defendant has a actual, legitimate defence.
Escalate the matter internally. If you then receive a "letter of deadlock", or 40 working days (approx 2 months) have passed from when you first raised the matter, you can take it to the Rail Ombudsman. The Ombudsman isn't the be-all and end-all, but there's a chance you may have success through it without having to escalate to legal proceedings.
If the Rail Ombudsman disagrees, or they agree but CrossCountry refuse to pay, then County Court is your only other option. Given the price of Off-Peak Returns from London to Birmingham and Birmingham to Belper, the amount in controversy will be at least £16.50 assuming the London to Birmingham ticket was of the cheapest available route. That's not a very large amount as Court cases go, but equally it is not so tiny that you should out of hand dismiss taking the matter to Court. You might, after all, like to add on an "administration fee" for "failing to pay compensation when it is due, with intent to avoid payment thereof"
, something the train companies are in the habit of doing when the roles are reversed!
Joking aside, they are of course talking a load of nonsense and contradicting themselves. The fact that London-Birmingham and Birmingham-Derby is travelled on different operators is entirely irrelevant. Birmingham-Belper
requires the use of at least two different train companies and yet they aren't disputing their liability there! It's almost as if they think you have bought two
airline tickets, say one from Easyjet from London to Birmingham and one from Ryanair from Birmingham to Belper (ignoring the fact that there would never be such short flights!). They clearly have forgotten the fact that they are a member of an industry made of many companies that allegedly "work together" to form National Rail. Har har, not a very funny joke!
The fact that there is no through ticket valid for the route you took is also wholly irrelevant. There are numerous
fastest (i.e. non-overtaken, and thus most popular) routes/itineraries for which this is the case. Are they suggesting that if you split your tickets, as would be necessary in such a case, that that wouldn't be able to constitute one journey? Or what about if you want to take a more circuitous route that isn't permitted by a route restriction on a ticket? Are they saying none of that would constitute a through journey? Clearly, this is an argument invented either because they realise there is no reason to refuse to pay out, or because there
really are people out there who are so gullible they believe it. It amazes me even though I've seen it so many times.
Let's hope you have some more success in your further escalations internally, but I'm more than happy to provide advice if you have difficulties, bearing in mind I had a very similar sort of situation with Chiltern a few months ago, that was only sorted after I took them to Court.