Scotrail Delay Repay

[Huntergreed]

Hi All,

I’m seeking some advice regarding a claim for delay repay I am making with Scotrail. I have made an intial claim and they have rejected it, I do however believe I am fully entitled to 100% compensation in these circumstances:


I intended to travel from Dumfries to Edinburgh on Wednesday 12th May, using an advance single which I bought for £12.50. I was intending to travel on the following itinerary:

1L95 (09:02 DMF - CAR)

Change at Carlisle to

9S44 (11:01 CAR - EDB (Avanti))

Due to a points failure at Annan, 1L95 was cancelled, so I was advised by a member of station staff (at around 5 past 9) that we were to get the stagecoach 79 bus to Carlisle. I checked the timetable and, as the next one was due to leave at 09:10, we realised this wasn’t possible to walk to the bus stop in time for. We caught the next possible bus after this (the 10:10), arriving into Carlisle just after 11:40.

Our advance tickets were endorsed by the Avanti team leader at Carlisle, who kindly allowed us to travel on the next Avanti Edinburgh service (9S54 13:01 CAR - EDB, which was running approximately 6 minutes late).

We arrived into Edinburgh at 14:23, 125 minutes after our scheduled arrival time of 12:18. As a result, I believe I am entitled to 100% compensation on the advance single I purchased.

Despite this, their agent has refused my claim. I want to simply confirm that:

A) I am entitled to delay repay of 100% of the advance single I purchased as I was 125 minutes late

and

B) What is the best way I can pursue this?

many thanks

 

[Journeyman]

Hi All,

I’m seeking some advice regarding a claim for delay repay I am making with Scotrail. I have made an intial claim and they have rejected it, I do however believe I am fully entitled to 100% compensation in these circumstances:


I intended to travel from Dumfries to Edinburgh on Wednesday 12th May, using an advance single which I bought for £12.50. I was intending to travel on the following itinerary:

1L95 (09:02 DMF - CAR)

Change at Carlisle to

9S44 (11:01 CAR - EDB (Avanti))

Due to a points failure at Annan, 1L95 was cancelled, so I was advised by a member of station staff (at around 5 past 9) that we were to get the stagecoach 81 bus to Carlisle. I checked the timetable and, as the next one was due to leave at 09:10, we realised this wasn’t possible to walk to the bus stop in time for. We caught the next possible bus after this (the 10:10), arriving into Carlisle just after 11:40.

Our advance tickets were endorsed by the Avanti team leader at Carlisle, who kindly allowed us to travel on the next Avanti Edinburgh service (9S54 13:01 CAR - EDB, which was running approximately 6 minutes late).

We arrived into Edinburgh at 14:23, 125 minutes after our scheduled arrival time of 12:18. As a result, I believe I am entitled to 100% compensation on the advance single I purchased.

Despite this, their agent has refused my claim. I want to simply confirm that:

A) I am entitled to delay repay of 100% of the advance single I purchased as I was 125 minutes late

and

B) What is the best way I can pursue this?

many thanks

Initially just point out the facts again. It's often enough to get it sorted. I've done it myself for a rejected claim, and something along the lines of "I was definitely delayed by X minutes" was enough for them to back down and pay up.

 

[robbeech]

Most delay repay systems are automated (or at least partly).
There is a risk of them paying out on an invalid claim so they are setup in such a way to be overly strict. As such, anything other than a straight forward claim is often rejected. This is incredibly customer unfriendly but completely normal behaviour I’m afraid to say. There are several more customer friendly approaches they could take but they would cost more money. A rejection is a further opportunity for the passenger to give up. This can save the operator thousands.

As for your claim, yes, you’re absolutely entitled to 100% compensation and Scotrail know this. There’s a very good chance that if you get back in touch they’ll rectify this and pay it out swiftly. This solves your problem but leaves the systemic problem firmly in place reducing their costs as they go.

Our advance tickets were endorsed by the Avanti team leader at Carlisle, who kindly allowed us to travel on the next Avanti Edinburgh service (9S54 13:01 CAR - EDB, which was running approximately 6 minutes late).

Worth a reminder that whilst I’m sure they were kind, they were obliged to let you on that service as per the conditions of travel anyway.

 

[Haywain]

Despite this, their agent has refused my claim.

How did you make the claim? The online form does not appear to accept the existence of the journey you intended to make.

 

[Quakkerillo]

Could you confirm that you're claiming for ONE single advance ticket, and not a return as a whole?
The only option I can see for confusion is Scotrail assuming you were able to catch the 12:07 Transpennine to Edinburgh, only arriving over 70 minutes late.
That puts you in a different delay bracket, which may be why it was automatically refused. But even if that's the case, if you were only claiming for a single ticket, that'd have yielded the exact same delay repay cost result.
Only if you were claiming against a return ticket would anything have changed (full return ticket price with >2h delay vs only the single portion of a return ticket). And that'd be something else, as I don't believe that two single advances count as a 'return ticket' as such against which could be claimed.

 

[AlterEgo]

Why not just pick up the phone and ring them?

 

[yorkie]

Presumably Avanti / TPE took the view that you had to stick to the Avanti & Connections routeing on your Advance ticket

If so I think it's simply a case of asserting the facts to Scotrail and make it clear that you were denied boarding the earlier TPE train and also that it was not possible to get to Carlisle for any earlier train.