Advance ticket purchased before SWR strike action

[Harlequin]

Morning!

Hoping someone can help me out in what will probably be a swiftly concluded thread.

I purchased an Advance Single for the 20:00 London Waterloo to Petersfield service on Friday. This was purchased before the strike timetables were announced.

There is no longer a 20:00 service - there is one at 19:45 and then the next is at 20:45. Am I able to catch one of these instead or do I need to request a refund for my Advance and then purchase another single?

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

This is the equivalent to the service having been cancelled, so there is an explicit right to catch the next service by the same company (the 20:45). Given the circumstances of the strike I understand SWR are saying you can take another train which will get you to your destination at a similar time, so if arrival time is vital then you can take the 19:45 instead.

Don't forget to claim delay compensation against your contracted arrival time if you do catch the 20:45. The introduction of a different timetable after you have made a contract with SWR doesn't change your entitlement to such compensation (especially given the fact that SWR haven't even gone to the effort of contacting customers through retailers to inform them of the strike and the nearest trains to their originally booked ones - so any claims of unilateral variation are nonsense).

Expect to have a claim for such compensation denied initially, unless the train is delayed with respect to the strike timetable. Don't let that put you off - escalation to a suitable level should see you getting what you are entitled to.