Delay Repay - Break of Journey - GWR

[Gettingtowork]

I put in a delay repay claim with GWR for a journey on August 25th. It has been rejected by their automatic system each time I've appealed it, even on the last round where you are able to put in text to explain. Now after another long wait it's been rejected through the manual process you get to, where I again explained.

I held a off peak day return from Totnes to Exeter St Davids and claimed for the return part of my journey.

I started the return from Marsh Barton to Dawlish Warren at 1236, however this train got cancelled at last notice, as did the next one, the one 2 hours later did show up after being cancelled and didn't show on the display. I got to Dawlish 2 hours later than expected to meet my family at the beach. This is the journey I claimed for on delay repay (2 hour delay).

Later I resumed my journey from Dawlish to Totnes on the 1713 (change at Newton Abbot). This was also delayed but I didn't put in a claim as I had already claimed the full 2 hours on the earlier journey.

When they rejected it again on the manual email process I sent this:
Hi

Thanks for getting in touch.

I intended to take the return journey from Exeter to Totnes in two legs:

1. Marsh Barton - Dawlish Warren (this is an open ticket so I can start the journey from a station en-route)
12:36 departure

I arrived over two hours late to meet my family at the beach. If you need any confirmation of this you will be able to see me on the CCTV from this station waiting as each train got cancelled at the last minute.

This is the leg I claimed delay repay on.

I then broke my journey to spend time in Dawlish.

2. Dawlish - Totnes (I resumed my break off journey here)
1713 departure from Dawlish
1738 departure from Newton Abbot
These trains were also late and resulted in a late arrival at Totnes. I didn't put in a second claim for this journey as I had already claimed the full 2 hours for leg 1.

I have also attached my Google Timeline in case you need further clarification.

I'm not sure why this claim has been so complicated to resolve, but I would appreciate some extra compensation for the trouble it has taken me. I have had to appeal it 3 times on your automatic site and had to write about it now many times. I'm sure most people have given up by this point and no doubt that works rather well for GWR.

Thanks for your help.

Best wishes

And had this reply:
Dear ,

Thank you for taking the time to provide further information.

I'm sorry your plans to meet with your family were disrupted, I can appreciate it would be frustrating.

Whilst you are able to start your journey from a station en route with that ticket type, as your ticket was for travel from Exeter St. David's to Totnes, and the journey supplied was only from Marsh Barton to Dawlish Warren, we would need this clarifying so we can ensure a full and fair review.

We would also require your full intended journey as Delay Repay compensation is worked out by calculating the difference between the expected arrival time of your full intended journey and the actual earliest arrival time, next available to yourself, to your final ticketed destination. Therefore we would not be able to compensate on the delay to Dawlish Warren.

We would also not provide compensation for the time spent providing information for your claim.

However, I have forwarded your full journey details on to the relevant department and asked them to take another look with all of the information you have supplied.

You should receive a response within 28 days regarding the outcome, if I am informed directly, I will update you accordingly.

Once again, thank you for contacting Great Western Railway.



Yours sincerely,



Customer Service Advisor

Have I got this wrong and they don't need to pay me delay repay here? It's not even much money, it's the principle. I was stranded for 2 hours at Marsh Barton and missed two sunny hours at the beach. Do any of you have any advice on how to reply to this email?

 

[redreni]

Delay Repay compensation is worked out by calculating the difference between the expected arrival time of your full intended journey and the actual earliest arrival time, next available to yourself, to your final ticketed destination. Therefore we would not be able to compensate on the delay to Dawlish Warren.

This seems to be the most interesting part of their response. If correct, they would be able to essentially argue "you intended this journey to take a long time and it did", and only pay out for the delay on the second leg.

There is, as far as I am aware, no support in the NRCoT for their assertion that delay repay can only be paid on the delay to the final ticketed destination.

On the return portion of some tickets, different legs of the return journey could occur weeks apart: you would only be able to claim against the ticket once, but to argue that a significant delay on leg one of such a journey somehow doesn't count because it didn't stop you getting to your final ticketed destination on time, would to my mind be ludicrous.

Para 32.1 NRCoT, for instance, states:

Page 23
32.1 If you are delayed in reaching your destination as a result of a delay or cancellation of a train service, you may be entitled to claim compensation from the Train Company that is responsible for the delay in completing your journey.

The phrase "delay in completing your journey" may be open to GWR's preferred interpretation, I suppose, as long as your travel plans on the day fall to be defined as one journey. There's no reason why they necessarily should be, just because you only used one ticket - the number of tickets is irrelevant, since you can have one journey on several tickets or several journeys on one ticket. Then again, you have described the two journeys you made as "legs", rather than separate journeys.

The phrase "final ticketed destination" appears nowhere in the NRCoT - I suspect they have just made it up. And even if it's in their passenger's charter, given the length of the delay, I don't think that's relevant because they have to pay up under NRCoT.

 

[Gettingtowork]

Yes, although described as "legs" they were definitely two distinct journeys. One way from work (Marsh Barton) to the beach to meet family (Dawlish) and the other was from the beach to home (Totnes). There was a number of hours interval between these two journeys.

Whatever GWR try and claim about their rules it doesn't change that I was still stuck waiting at a station for two hours and was late to meet my family at the beach by two hours, which I thought was exactly the sort of thing delay repay was designed to compensate for.

 

[Watershed]

This is a nonsensical refusal reason. There is no obligation to undertake the full journey listed on the ticket, and accordingly you can claim for a 'partial' journey. You are perfectly entitled to break your journey and/or finish before the destination shown in your ticket.

You probably need to escalate this a few more times to get through to someone who actually understands the principles at stake, sadly.

 

[Gettingtowork]

Thanks for your help. Just wanted to check I hadn't got it all wrong. I will keep at it until I get my money!

 

[Belperpete]

Thanks for your help. Just wanted to check I hadn't got it all wrong. I will keep at it until I get my money!

TBH, I think you were shooting yourself in the foot by mentioning that you later resumed your journey. This was completely irrelevant to your claim for the delay to your journey between Marsh Barton and Dawlish. Unfortunately you handed them an excuse to reject your claim, even though it is not a valid excuse.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Oct 2025 ==

On the return portion of some tickets, different legs of the return journey could occur weeks apart: you would only be able to claim against the ticket once

You can only claim for the same delay once. You can of course claim against a ticket more than once.

 

[Gettingtowork]

I had an automated message yesterday to say my delay claim had been accepted.

It looks like someone from the back office had gone back into their system on 9th October and put in what it displays as a 'corrected claim'. The details were exactly the same as the those I'd put in for my original claim and the multiple appeals. This time it was accepted though.

 

[Belperpete]

That is good news.

 

[Snow1964]

The GWR delay repay system seems to have problems and not understanding their delays, or tickets

I am currently having to appeal, where I was recently delayed on both outward and return journey to Dawlish area, the auto system agreed the return delay quickly, but the outward where 2nd of 3 trains was cancelled causing 66 mins late at destination (with the same return e-ticket bought on this site) has been rejected as insufficient evidence, so have had to appeal re-uploading everyone's pdf e-tickets.

I like to support this site, so buy many longer journey tickets on here, so find it frustrating when system rejects its e-tickets (even more so when it accepts same evidence for return leg at bottom of pdf, but not the outward tickets on same pdf)

 

[Mark J]

There definitely seems to of been a tightening up on Delay Repay.

I've had one passed onto a TOC that had nothing to do with the delay I was referring to.

Plus another by XC, who incorrectly assumed I would be on a GWR service instead - when in fact used the delay period of 30 minutes to have a quick walk around, and grab a quick bite to eat in the area I was stuck in.

Unless your journey is a simple A to B, or B to A delay (with no break), then you have an increasing chance of claims being rejected.

Even if you were to have an iternary written in stone, many would still find a way of refusing to pay out.

I suspect an increasing number of genuinely delayed journeys are being refused payouts for the most ridiculous reasons.

At the end of the day, if the TOCs don't like paying out - then make sure your trains run on time!