I do, however, believe that delays to advance purchase tickets should result in automatic refunds, such as with Virgin Trains when tickets are booked through their own web site.
This does not work effectively and also penalises:
- third party retailers
- passengers who need to change trains (especially a consideration given that changing will often increase your exposure to a delay to your overall journey)
- passengers who use a combination of tickets (as is often encouraged by train companies, e.g. if one company releases Advance fares before another, or refuses to issue "& connections" Advances for the journey)
Could you explain how this works?
When I have used the VT website to book for example a Cradley Heath to Barnhill or Springburn Advance Single, I have never been automatically compensated when the connection from Glasgow Queen Street - Barnhill or Springburn has been busted.
I always have to do a manual submission online.
It doesn't work for connections. There are many flaws with automatic delay repay, or at least the way it is currently implemented by awful software that was clearly written by someone who has no clue whatsoever about how railways work.
The one occasion of late I could have done, I refrained as the delay was not a railway issue (the fire next to the line at Wellingborough) - the fire brigade imposed an exclusion zone which included the railway. Nothing EMT could do about it.
That's your choice; EMT will be compensated by Network Rail irrespective of whether Delay Repay is claimed or not (and no, EMT won't refuse to accept the money becasuse there is nothing NR could have done about it!)
I claim Delay Repay if it is worth it. Definitely not for anything under £5 and only normally for under £10 if I have been seriously inconvenienced. If over £10 then I would probably claim regardless. Therefore, my response to the poll is yes and no – which isn’t an option.
Agreed; I often
won't claim if it's going to be more time consuming than it's worth.
Here is an example:
I made a return journey from Coventry to Kenilworth. The ticket cost about £3, which is a reasonable price to be fair. I checked if the train was running before i went to the station; I saw it was delayed but still running so I continued past the bus stop to the station only to be told it was now cancelled and no road replacement would be provided. I was told that I should wait an hour for the next one, though I realised the next one would also be delayed, so I chose not to. I therefore went back to the bus stop and got a single, which cost £3.10! I cannot claim a refund of the bus ticket from West Midlands Trains. I also cannot claim Delay Repay as I did not make the journey. I made the return journey by train. I was planning on taking the train just after 3pm but this was cancelled, so I got the train an hour later. So, in theory what I am supposed to do is to claim a refund of the outward portion from the retailer (Trainsplit/Raileasy) for £1.50, and claiming Delay Repay from WMT for the return portion, also for £1.50. This would be a total waste of my time, filing out two lots of forms, and faffing around. Even if I had been delayed on the outward journey, it would have been no less complex as there is no method of claiming Delay Repay for both portions without filling in the form twice.
Had I waited for the next train, I could have faffed around with two claims and got the journey for nothing. As it was, I ended up paying more than double the fare and couldn't be bothered to claim £3 back, as it just wasn't worth the hassle.
Automatic delay repay would not have solved that issue, so isn't the solution. There are some journeys where automatic delay repay does work, but it is very limited, and the current system is clearly anticompetitive against third party retailers and would probably be ruled illegal if it went to court.