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Interrail tickets: delay repay etc

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Amateurish

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I arranged to travel with my family to Copenhagen using interrail tickets. The first leg of our journey was a Virgin service from Coventry to London on 25 October afternoon. Unfortunately, this was the day that Euston was shut because of a trespasser. We were stuck on our train for hours. We then missed our outward Eurostar journey (the last of the day). We had no alternative but to go home that evening. We then also missed our hotel in Brussels, and onward tickets on Saturday from Brussels to Copenhagen. We had a 3 days in a month pass. One of those three days was obviously used up on the Friday. Interrail told me on Friday evening that I could not amend the pass to allow me to travel on Saturday.

I paid for flights on Saturday morning to get to Denmark.

I have tried to get some sort of refund / reimbursement from Virgin, Interrail and Myinterrail.co.uk (who sold me the passes). They have all denied any claim.

So my question is, a) am I entitled to any sort of refund and / or reimbursement of additional costs and b) who do I claim this from?
 
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Haywain

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So my question is, a) am I entitled to any sort of refund and / or reimbursement of additional costs and b) who do I claim this from?
Your additional costs should be covered by your travel insurance. As for your interrail tickets, are you a UK resident? If so, I believe you shouldn't need to be dating the tickets until you are using them on a relevant service (such as Eurostar), so you shouldn't have lost a day. However, I don't see that there would be any option to have that day "refunded" in the circumstances.
 

Amateurish

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The tickets have to be dated to use the initial outbound service i.e. Coventry to London in this case. A "Global" pass can be used for one journey in your country of residence.
 

skifans

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Interrail does have its own delay compensation program - managed by Eurail Group, it might be worth putting a claim in with them at: https://eurailgroup.org/delay-compensation/

Although if you read the T&C's they actually pass the buck and cases like this:
"Compensation for supplements (e.g. reservations) and reimbursement of expenses incurred as a result of the sustained delay (e.g. for alternative means of transportation, accommodation, etc.) fall within carriers’ individual conditions of carriage. If received, such claims will be forwarded to the reservation agent or the provider of carriage concerned for further processing."
 

Mainline421

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I arranged to travel with my family to Copenhagen using interrail tickets. The first leg of our journey was a Virgin service from Coventry to London on 25 October afternoon. Unfortunately, this was the day that Euston was shut because of a trespasser. We were stuck on our train for hours. We then missed our outward Eurostar journey (the last of the day). We had no alternative but to go home that evening. We then also missed our hotel in Brussels, and onward tickets on Saturday from Brussels to Copenhagen. We had a 3 days in a month pass. One of those three days was obviously used up on the Friday. Interrail told me on Friday evening that I could not amend the pass to allow me to travel on Saturday.

I paid for flights on Saturday morning to get to Denmark.

I have tried to get some sort of refund / reimbursement from Virgin, Interrail and Myinterrail.co.uk (who sold me the passes). They have all denied any claim.

So my question is, a) am I entitled to any sort of refund and / or reimbursement of additional costs and b) who do I claim this from?
You should be entitled to compensation from EURail https://eurailgroup.org/travellers-area/delay-compensation-page/ and I would suggest making a Delay Repay claim, although strictly speaking you are not entitled to Delay Repay I suspect Virgin's franchise would still require them to pay it and they have done in the past without question.

While I understand how the reality on the ground may have led you to return home, in theory at least you should have remained in London where Eurostar would have been obliged to carry you on the next available service and VTWC arrange overnight accommodation if necessary. You can still complete your journey without amending the dates on the ticket in the event of delays. Unfortunately you are not covered by the NRCoT, and although PRR does mandate full refunds in cases like this I don't think Article 16 covers Rail Passes. As you appear not to be using the Interrail ticket for the onward travel from Brussels this would depend on whether the new EU split ticket protections are in place yet.
Your additional costs should be covered by your travel insurance. As for your interrail tickets, are you a UK resident? If so, I believe you shouldn't need to be dating the tickets until you are using them on a relevant service (such as Eurostar), so you shouldn't have lost a day. However, I don't see that there would be any option to have that day "refunded" in the circumstances.
This is incorrect you need to date the rover in the normal box for the travel on VTWC as well as the "outbound" box.
 

Amateurish

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You should be entitled to compensation from EURail https://eurailgroup.org/travellers-area/delay-compensation-page/ and I would suggest making a Delay Repay claim, although strictly speaking you are not entitled to Delay Repay I suspect Virgin's franchise would still require them to pay it and they have done in the past without question.

While I understand how the reality on the ground may have led you to return home, in theory at least you should have remained in London where Eurostar would have been obliged to carry you on the next available service and VTWC arrange overnight accommodation if necessary. You can still complete your journey without amending the dates on the ticket in the event of delays. Unfortunately you are not covered by the NRCoT, and although PRR does mandate full refunds in cases like this I don't think Article 16 covers Rail Passes. As you appear not to be using the Interrail ticket for the onward travel from Brussels this would depend on whether the new EU split ticket protections are in place yet.

This is incorrect you need to date the rover in the normal box for the travel on VTWC as well as the "outbound" box.
Cheers for your reply.

It was literally impossible to get to London. We sat at Rugby for ages then they turfed us all off the train which was then sent North first stop Warrington. At Rugby there were no trains South at all. I did all station staff, train staff, and interrail on social media what I should do, and noone could give me any help at all.
 

AlterEgo

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I do not have insurance.

This situation does not compare well with plane travel where there are legal requirements on airlines to support delayed passengers.

I would take this as a learning experience. It’s madness to go without travel insurance.

The protections for air travellers are greater, for sure, which I agree isn’t a good situation.
 

Amateurish

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I would take this as a learning experience. It’s madness to go without travel insurance.

The protections for air travellers are greater, for sure, which I agree isn’t a good situation.

You know, I don't even think this would be covered. I just checked the policy I had a couple of years ago. It does cover delayed departure / missed departure caused by delays on public transport. But it assumes that you are flying, so the policy requires you to go to the airport, to check in, and to make any claims first to the airline under EU regs.
 

AlterEgo

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You know, I don't even think this would be covered. I just checked the policy I had a couple of years ago. It does cover delayed departure / missed departure caused by delays on public transport. But it assumes that you are flying, so the policy requires you to go to the airport, to check in, and to make any claims first to the airline under EU regs.

Most travel insurance covers rail journeys of the type you mention. You only need to go to the departure point and follow any check in instructions. If there are none, because it’s a train, then this doesn’t negate your cover.
 

island

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I have found very few travel insurance policies, particularly at the cheap end of the market, which cover domestic journeys without at least two or three days’ hotel booked at the other end.

Even if covered, travel insurance delay payouts tend to start at 12 hours.
 

WesternLancer

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I have found very few travel insurance policies, particularly at the cheap end of the market, which cover domestic journeys without at least two or three days’ hotel booked at the other end.

Even if covered, travel insurance delay payouts tend to start at 12 hours.
Yes, I think decent travel insurance is the point. I always suspect really cheap policies will have so much get out clauses all you are paying for is an imaginary peace of mind - not a policy with much hope of actually helping you much if things go wrong...
 
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