SWR Delay Repay and short notice engineering work

[kingston_toon]

Hi experts,

I booked a number of Advance single tickets from Shanklin to London Waterloo via the hovercraft on 22 October for travel on 1 November. During booking, I noted that Guildford - Woking was a replacement bus until around 16:00 but through train afterwards. So I booked the 16:18 ex-Shanklin which put us on the 17:52 Portsmouth and Southsea to Waterloo arriving at 19:44. My email confirmation sets out the whole journey on the 17:52 as a through train and the tickets also reflect this.

On the day, we turned up at Portsmouth and Southsea to find the 17:52 terminating at Guildford with a replacement bus on to Woking for further connection to Waterloo. This put us in to Waterloo 52 minutes later than the time on the email confirmation.

I applied to SWR for delay repay and was denied, both initially and through two escalations. The sum of money isn't huge but I'd be curious to understand the official position here and whether a change to planned engineering work after the point of purchasing an advance ticket qualifies for delay repay. SWR claim the following: "I must reiterate that any claim is based on the timetable and should any changes be made at short notice; the delay repay claim is based on any adjustment made".

Cheers!

 

[mikeg]

Was there any notice, for example a red triangle on the information icon that timetable was subject to change? If not, you could not have anticipated the delay and this sounds like a change to the terms after the contract was made. Which is wrong, irrespective of SWR's policy. They really should go with the timetable in existence at the time. I'd say this is worth taking further, I would say irrespective of SWR's policy the law would probably be on your side. If you can't get SWR to budge obtain a letter of deadlock and take it to the rail ombudsman or transport focus or whoever.

 

[island]

You may claim compensation based on the contract you entered into, but the contract (the NRCoT) states compensation is paid for a delay of 60 minutes or more. If claiming compensation based on SWR’s internal policy, they can set and interpret their internal policy. And whilst it is bad customer service to operate the policy this way, I am not convinced that it is a breach of any sort.

You may wish to escalate to the Rail Ombudsman if unable to get satisfaction.

 

[kingston_toon]

Thanks both.

No, there was no indication of potential changes to services after c.16:00 on the site I used for booking (TPE, as I prefer the old mixing deck interface). Furthermore, a friend who travelled with us booked the same journey directly on the SWR website a few days after me and that was the same. Incidentally, he applied for delay repay on the same basis and was awarded it!

I used the Wayback Machine to check SWR's dedicated engineering work pages and on 13 October, prior to me booking, they stated the following for Sunday 1 November:

Some lines in the Guildford area will be closed until late afternoon Sunday for maintenance work.

• London Waterloo to Portsmouth via Guildford services will start at Guildford.
• London Waterloo to Guildford via Woking services will terminate at Woking.
• Buses replace trains between Woking and Guildford.
• London Waterloo to Guildford via Effingham Junction services will terminate at Clandon.
• Buses replace trains between Clandon and Guildford.

However, by the next archived date, 31 October, the message above had changed from "until late afternoon" to "all day". So clearly the possession did change at relatively short notice.

I often see this argument from the other side, where TOCs don't release advance tickets until any engineering work changes are confirmed, however late in the day that might be. But with advance tickets available, SWR must have been relatively confident what was in the timetable would actually run.

SWR's website states the following in relation to their delay repay policy, and they highlighted this in their email to me, though the agent added the word "normally" in brackets prior to "updated six weeks in advance"! They also added "In some cases, there are short notice alterations, however the same rule applies. Any claim is based on the revised timetable".

Am I entitled to Delay Repay if the timetable has changed?​

If we introduced a temporary timetable (due to, for example, poor weather) our Delay Repay guarantee will be based on that temporary timetable.

For engineering work, online journey planners are updated six weeks in advance, and you should make sure that you check your journey around that time. Delay Repay will apply to the engineering work timetable.

So this does seem a little unfair, as one would expect from the above that the timetable would be fixed ten days out, which of course is well under the stated six weeks out. Is there any precedent to receiving delay repay in relation to these circumstances? I think whether I take this further or not will depend on which side of bed I get out of tomorrow!

 

[bb21]

You have nothing to lose getting a deadlock letter and taking it to the Ombudsman.

 

[kingston_toon]

You have nothing to lose getting a deadlock letter and taking it to the Ombudsman.

Thanks. I had a quick look back through Twitter this afternoon and found SWR were still tweeting the engineering work was only until "late afternoon" as late as 16:00 on the day itself! So have decided to proceed. As you say, nothing to lose...

 

[Hadders]

Make sure you take screen shots of those Twitter posts before they delete them....

 

[kingston_toon]

Make sure you take screen shots of those Twitter posts before they delete them....

Done

 

[philthetube]

I suspect asking for a deadlock letter may resolve this.

 

[kingston_toon]

SWR have responded to me offering the amount I was claiming in rail travel vouchers as a gesture of goodwill. While I'd prefer the sum to be refunded to my card or bank account, I'll certainly make use of the vouchers so am minded to accept. Thanks for all your help everyone!