Hovercraft suspended - Wightlink ferry can money be claimed back?

[James Wake]

Hi all

A friend of mine was intending to get the hovercraft over from Ryde to Southsea this evening on a through advance ticket to London Waterloo, but it looks like the hovercraft will be suspended all day.

HoverTravel say passengers have to buy a ferry ticket on Wightlink and claim unused hovercraft ticket back from rail company they booked from, but considering they will still get their booked trains from Portsmouth to London, where does my friend stand with this? The advance cost £13.05 with railcard discount, but I see that getting a ticket from Ryde Esplanade to Portsmouth Stations with 16-25 discount will cost £12, would they be able to claim this back?

 

[Iggy12a]

From previous experience, Hovertravel front line staff are not well informed of their own terms and conditions.
If you go on their website to: https://www.hovertravel.co.uk/booking-terms-and-conditions/#changestojourney
it states:
"Delays to your journey and cancellation

If we anticipate there will be a delay to your journey, we will advise you as soon as we can and notify you of the new estimated departure and arrival time.

Where we expect your journey to be delayed by more than 90 minutes, we will offer you the choice of:

• re-routing at the earliest opportunity at no additional cost; or
• reimbursement of the ticket price (limited to the unused portion of your ticket and less the value attributed to any attraction ticket that has been used), and if the cancelled service is your return journey, a free of charge return service to your first departure point."

My reading of that would be that they should be offering to give you a free ticket to travel over on the Wightlink service.

If the agents at the Hovertravel refuse this, I would you suggest you buy your own ticket on the Wightlink, and then subsequently complain to the Managing Director of Hovertravel.