Ticket Routing on Strike Days

[Topological]

I have an advance ticket from Stansted Airport to Swansea for travel on Thursday 20th.

It seems the last itinerary that works involves the 16:18 from Paddington to Cardiff. However, my flight lands at 14:15 if it is on time and it will be a rush to the corresponding Stansted Express at 14:43.

In National Rail it provides an option leaving Stansted at 15:43 and going via London then Birmingham and Shrewsbury. Normally no one would think of doing that, but would it be allowed on a strike day?

Otherwise there are some very difficult decisions to make about the best approach to the journey back.

 

[Watershed]

Unfortunately there is no blanket easement for allowing travel via any reasonable route on strike dates. It's one of several glaring omissions in the industry approach to strikes, but unfortunately that's the way things stand.

Therefore you have to rely on the same rights as you'd have on any other day. The first relevant question is therefore what itinerary you're booked on with your Advance ticket.

If the train from Stansted is a later one than the 14:43, then clearly you would be stranded if you stuck to your ticket's route restriction (AP LONDN READING) and the usual permitted routes, so NRCoT 28.2 would come into play, meaning that any other TOC in a position to assist you must do so. This essentially requires the relevant operators (presumably Avanti and TfW?) to allow you to travel free of charge to avoid you being stranded.

Whilst you'd like to hope that common sense would be shown and you wouldn't have any problems travelling via Birmingham and Shrewsbury given the circumstances, it's possible that you might be (wrongly) told you have to buy a new ticket. If so, I'd just comply and then claim back the cost of this afterwards.

 

[Topological]

Thank you for the help Watershed, very much appreciated.

This is something which the guidance on what happens to tickets on strike days does not really explain well online as you say.

 

[Starmill]

Thank you for the help Watershed, very much appreciated.

This is something which the guidance on what happens to tickets on strike days does not really explain well online as you say.

They want to give you the impression that you have to chose between changing your travel date, or refund and rebooking. If they were to do the right thing by customers by being up front about your rights, they might lose a bit of money!

 

[Watershed]

They want to give you the impression that you have to chose between changing your travel date, or refund and rebooking. If they were to do the right thing by customers by being up front about your rights, they might lose a bit of money!

Indeed. For example under the question "I was due to travel on a strike day – what are my options?", Avanti's strike page lists only two options - "claim a full refund" or "travel flexibly" (within the industry's rather narrow definition of "flexible") :



Now, it doesn't explicitly say that these are your only options. But clearly, 99% of people would assume that this is the case - otherwise other options would have been listed there. It's certainly a breach of the spirit of the PRO, even if not necessarily the letter. But who's going to pull them up over it?

The DfT? As if

The ORR? I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Topological]

GWR has a lot of writing, but nothing about the options if you travel using other operators: https://www.gwr.com/strike

At least Avanti are making a little more of the flexibility that is available.