Eurostar refuse to refund for cancelled train on French side?

[djinglasgow]

Hi,
I'd love to get the forum's collective wisdom on trying to get a refund from Eurostar for a cancelled connection.

Context:
- I had booked to travel from London to Geneva on 9th March 2023, buying tickets via thetrainline sometime in early February. The trainline routing engine offered a journey with separate tickets from London to Paris for £138.25 and Paris - Geneva for £50 which I paid for all together.

The eurostar ticket was marked as exchangeable for £30 if changes made within 7 days of the journey, the SNCF fare was an advance ticket.

- On 7th March, 2 days before I was due to travel, I was informed by SNCF by email that my Paris - Geneva train would be cancelled due to strikes and could either obtain a refund or try and reschedule. Given that I had to be in Geneva that evening I decided to cancel and take a flight, assuming (foolishly?) that I would also be able to get a refund on the Eurostar given that there was no practical way to continue the journey the same day.

- I rang thetrainline on 7th March to explain the situation and they said they should be able to get a refund on the tickets; the SNCF ticket could be refunded straightaway (even though it was an advanced ticket with normally no refund offered for changes) but they said there may be a delay on the Eurostar refund as it was not a 'standard cancellation' and would be grouped with other cancellations.
After receiving no further refund from thetrainline for 3 months, I recently followed this up and was told by thetrainline that Eurostar will not offer a refund as their train I was booked on DID still run.

This seems completely unreasonable as:
- I was wrongly advised that I would be refunded
- Had I taken the Eurostar I would have found myself in Paris unable to get to my final destination within the same day - SNCF would not have paid for a hotel given they'd already informed me their train would be cancelled
- I believe Eurostar are majority owned by the same operator (SNCF) whose train was cancelled

Any suggestions on how I can take this further or is it time to give up?

I love travelling by train but if passengers are exposed to these types of risk then what hope is there of train travel ever substituting for planes! - as much as I'd prefer to take the train it's hard to see me taking journeys with Eurostar that have onward connections ever again.

Thanks all,
Damian

PS - I've been through the EU directive on rail passenger rights (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:32007R1371)
It seems that Clause 2(c) of Chapter II of Title IV of Annex I (Liability of the Carrier) (Art 32) is what Eurostar is hiding behind as it considers SNCF to be the 3rd party. But if SNCF majority owns Eurostar is this really applicable?

 

[Trainbike46]

Have you spoken to eurostar directly, or just through the trainline?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Aug 2023 ==

Another important question is whether you spoke to trainline before or after you were due to travel.

Personally, I would not let it go, and if you can't get trainline (who you bought your tickets with) to refund the full transaction, I would pursue a chargeback through my card issuer.

There are a lot of fare experts and dispute experts on this forum who may be able to give better advice

 

[djinglasgow]

Hi,
Not spoken to eurostar yet but that's my next port of call.
I spoke to the Trainline before I was due to leave London - they said they expected I should be able to get a refund on both legs so it seemed obvious to cancel the whole trip. Trouble is that unless the call was recorded I have no proof of them saying that.

Will update you on the outcome!
Damian

 

[HamworthyGoods]

Hi,
Not spoken to eurostar yet but that's my next port of call.
I spoke to the Trainline before I was due to leave London - they said they expected I should be able to get a refund on both legs so it seemed obvious to cancel the whole trip. Trouble is that unless the call was recorded I have no proof of them saying that.

Will update you on the outcome!
Damian

Have you considered claiming for the abandoned journey through your travel insurance?

 

[AlterEgo]

PS - I've been through the EU directive on rail passenger rights (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:32007R1371)
It seems that Clause 2(c) of Chapter II of Title IV of Annex I (Liability of the Carrier) (Art 32) is what Eurostar is hiding behind as it considers SNCF to be the 3rd party. But if SNCF majority owns Eurostar is this really applicable?

Unfortunately this is all too common. They are entitled to hide behind this legislation as SNCF are a third party regardless of the SNCF holding in Eurostar.

You were wrongly advised by Trainline who seem to have given the impression a refund would be forthcoming but only delayed.

Sadly, your rights as a rail passenger in Europe are often less than they are when travelling by air. The Man In Seat 61 may be interested to hear your tale of woe as he is a strident campaigner for improvement in this area. But I’m sorry it sucks right now.

 

[Gerald Fiennes]

I would raise directly with Eurostar. Give the various disputes in Europe this year, it's not an uncommon situation and they did offer various options for those making connections in France to rebook etc. etc. In general, the Trainline is really not the best way of making these bookings as it introduces a third party to get in the way should things go wrong. Eurostar do offer some through tickets to France (although not currently to Geneva!).

More generally, through rail bookings in Europe are still much more difficult than they need to be. Anything involving Eurostar, France or Italy is particularly difficult as the railway administrations here pursue their own commercial policies (and, of course, the latter two compete with other on some French-Italian flows). Further tightening of the EU Passenger Rights Direcive would help, but even getting what there is was opposed by most member states, as Mr 61 will probably remind us!

 

[Wolfie]

It sounds like your issue is with Trainline. You may need to go down the road of small claims court action against them. It's amazing how many companies rethink when they get actual Court papers.....

 

[djinglasgow]

Hi all (and anyone else ever researching the issue of compensation due to train strikes)

Result was that my credit card (Halifax) secured a full refund of the Eurostar ticket from thetraineline.com so the full £138 was refunded to me.
Thanks for the advice to keep pursuing this.

Moral of the story - always buy your international train tickets (costing > £100) with a credit card and don't give up on reclaiming as Section 75 clearly has more power over companies than a poor consumer trying to argue what's reasonable.

Also - it's not clear my travel insurer (annual multi-trip with Coverwise) would have covered me as they only insured my initial outward trip from the UK (not subsequent trips - and in this case it was the subsequent trip's cancellation that meant I couldn't take the initial outward journey)