Avanti vs TPE

[The Prisoner]

Caught in the middle of a bizarre situation. Booked for my children (actually 1 adult, 1 child) to go from Penrith to Edinburgh on New Year's Eve to meet some friends. My folks live in Penrith, I live with my other half in Chester.

Obviously the Penrith service to Edinburgh was cancelled because of the landslip so we couldn't use those tickets. Didn't even pick them up from Penrith station.

Realising the night before that the children couldn't go to Edinburgh they came back to Chester with us, but there wasn't enough room in the car so we bought tickets back to Chester for some of the party to go back on the train (without boring you there were five and a big dog in the party, and we had come up to Penrith with some in the car, some on the train).

The cancelled train the children were booked on to Edinburgh was at 1355. The train we made a new booking on to go back to Chester was at 1423.

Avanti have passed the claim to TPE who have declined it as they are saying we couldn't have been on two trains at once, so the claim must be fraudulent. We have also had to claim for the 1423 as that was also cancelled and there was over an hours delay.

The Edinburgh train never ran. So we couldn't have been on two trains at once, plus the numbers in the party were different (family railcard used on one booking, not the other for example).

Claimed through point of sale - Avanti. They passed the claim to TPE who have declined it as fraudulent. TPE are now saying we need to go back to Avanti. Avanti are saying TPE have declined it because we were on two trains at one.

The train never ran?! The line was closed. We didn't pick the tickets up.

I will sort it through appeal and a load more wasted time, but the utter fragmentation of the British rail system is abysmal. How many people would just give up at that point?

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's a bit hard to keep track of what is going on there, but you've got an abandoned journey and a delay claim there, haven't you?

The abandoned journey (the one that was not taken because the booked train was cancelled) should be claimed as a refund from the point of sale. This usually necessitates going through their customer services department, e.g. if it's Trainline or a derivative don't press the refund button, but use the online chat to tell them you want a refund as the train was cancelled. If they mention a DR claim tell them this has been rejected and was a mistake and you did not travel (they can see that as the tickets weren't collected!). You do NOT do this as a delay repay claim, it seems like you maybe did?

The Delay Repay should be claimed as that from the TOC that delayed you first as a Delay Repay claim.

I think this is getting twisted because you've put them both in for Delay Repay so it seems fraudulent as a result? Though it may be very hard to get out of that now it's happened, you may have to claim via customer services and explain the full situation (perhaps a bit more clearly than your post does).

I would put in the refund claim with the retailer of the Edinburgh ticket first, get the reference number, then contact the customer services of the TOC that delayed you on the journey you did make saying that you would like to claim, and the confusion was caused by you having claimed DR when you should have claimed a refund for not travelling on the other ticket, and here's the reference for that refund claim which has been submitted correctly if you want to check.

(I do wish there was a clearance house for this! It really should be as simple as putting the details in and selecting "delayed 15+ mins/30+ mins/60+ mins/120+ mins/abandoned mid journey/did not travel" from a set of checkboxes)

 

[Watershed]

Caught in the middle of a bizarre situation. Booked for my children (actually 1 adult, 1 child) to go from Penrith to Edinburgh on New Year's Eve to meet some friends. My folks live in Penrith, I live with my other half in Chester.

Obviously the Penrith service to Edinburgh was cancelled because of the landslip so we couldn't use those tickets. Didn't even pick them up from Penrith station.

Realising the night before that the children couldn't go to Edinburgh they came back to Chester with us, but there wasn't enough room in the car so we bought tickets back to Chester for some of the party to go back on the train (without boring you there were five and a big dog in the party, and we had come up to Penrith with some in the car, some on the train).

The cancelled train the children were booked on to Edinburgh was at 1355. The train we made a new booking on to go back to Chester was at 1423.

Avanti have passed the claim to TPE who have declined it as they are saying we couldn't have been on two trains at once, so the claim must be fraudulent. We have also had to claim for the 1423 as that was also cancelled and there was over an hours delay.

The Edinburgh train never ran. So we couldn't have been on two trains at once, plus the numbers in the party were different (family railcard used on one booking, not the other for example).

Claimed through point of sale - Avanti. They passed the claim to TPE who have declined it as fraudulent. TPE are now saying we need to go back to Avanti. Avanti are saying TPE have declined it because we were on two trains at one.

The train never ran?! The line was closed. We didn't pick the tickets up.

I will sort it through appeal and a load more wasted time, but the utter fragmentation of the British rail system is abysmal. How many people would just give up at that point?

Clearly the fact that Delay Repay and refunds are claimed in different ways, rather than through one central clearing house or both through the same process and company, is very unhelpful. So is the fact that Delay Repay is (wrongly) colloquially referred to as a 'refund' by many staff.

However, equally I think you have gone about this slightly the wrong way - you should not have made a Delay Repay claim for the cancelled Edinburgh service. You should have claimed a refund for the tickets for this journey, and then only made a Delay Repay claim for the journey to Chester. Having made Delay Repay claims that would have required you be in two places at once in order to be able to make both journeys, I can see why the claims have been rejected.

You should contact Avanti again and ask them to process a refund for the ticket to Edinburgh. You should also appeal your rejected Delay Repay claim for the Chester journey - TPE are not the party responsible for this one as it was not their train that was cancelled.

It might be worthwhile contacting Avanti's customer services manually rather than using automated processes, so that they can get an overall picture of what's gone on and dispel any suggestion of fraud.