Complicated Delay Repay - Saturday 22nd June

[Joey Beauchamp]

I've just had my delay repay claim rejected by Avanti and passed to West Midland Trains. I can see their point now I think about it and I believe it's because I caught a connection that was under the minimum connection time at Rugby.

Here's what happened:

I planned to catch the 07.25 LNWR service from Long Buckby to connect with the 7.44 Avanti to Stoke-on-Trent.

The lines were blocked due to trespassers on the track so the first stopping train through Long Buckby was the 08.23, which departed +12 at 08.35. Happily for me, I knew my Avanti train was behind this train because the Northampton avoiding line was completely closed for engineering works.

Despite arriving on platform 3 at Rugby, I sprinted down the ramp and caught my original train, which departed +69 at 08.53.

I believe that WMR will now try to compensate me for a 2 hour+ delay because their system won't show that I could have made the connection I did make at Rugby.

I only claimed to Stoke-on-Trent but I was actually travelling to Macclesfield on a West Midlands Day Ranger and a Kidsgrove to Macc day return. I only submitted the West Midlands Day Ranger to Stoke because I figured this combination of tickets would have made their algorithms explode!

What is the best thing to do when you have such a complicated situation? Contact customer services directly rather than filling in the online form?

Can anyone work out how much compensation I should be due? the WM day ranger was £34.

 

[redreni]

I think I would have probably submitted the claim to LNWR in this situation as the initial delay was theirs (although it sounds like it may have been irrelevant to the eventual arrival time), but that's less important as it doesn't matter if the claim gets forwarded as long as somebody pays it.

Ultimately, as long as you're claiming for a journey you actually made, you can choose whether to claim to your final destination or some intermediate point, so as to maximise the amount of delay repay due. So I think you could have claimed more. For something like this I would try to do it as a manual claim using a PDF or paper claim form if available.

In my experience of claiming for delays between Paddington and Maidenhead when holding a Z1-6 day travelcard and a day return from the boundary of zone 6 to Maidenhead, it's been paid out based on the combined value of the two tickets. GWR usually do this without issue, although on one occasion they tried to pay out based purely on the value of the Boundary Zone 6 to Maidenhead ticket ignoring the travelcard (even though that ticket isn't valid at all by itself and can only be used in conjunction with the travelcard, and didn't cover the entire journey claimed for in any event). They relented on the third email.

I assume this is the same when a day ranger is held? I've no personal experience of this, though.

 

[yorkie]

I've just had my delay repay claim rejected by Avanti and passed to West Midland Trains. I can see their point now I think about it and I believe it's because I caught a connection that was under the minimum connection time at Rugby.

Here's what happened:

I planned to catch the 07.25 LNWR service from Long Buckby to connect with the 7.44 Avanti to Stoke-on-Trent.

The lines were blocked due to trespassers on the track so the first stopping train through Long Buckby was the 08.23, which departed +12 at 08.35. Happily for me, I knew my Avanti train was behind this train because the Northampton avoiding line was completely closed for engineering works.

Despite arriving on platform 3 at Rugby, I sprinted down the ramp and caught my original train, which departed +69 at 08.53.

I believe that WMR will now try to compensate me for a 2 hour+ delay because their system won't show that I could have made the connection I did make at Rugby.

I only claimed to Stoke-on-Trent but I was actually travelling to Macclesfield on a West Midlands Day Ranger and a Kidsgrove to Macc day return. I only submitted the West Midlands Day Ranger to Stoke because I figured this combination of tickets would have made their algorithms explode!

What is the best thing to do when you have such a complicated situation? Contact customer services directly rather than filling in the online form?

Can anyone work out how much compensation I should be due? the WM day ranger was £34.

Can you write down, in list/tabular format, your originally planned itinerary, and below this, your actual timings?

 

[Joey Beauchamp]

Can you write down, in list/tabular format, your originally planned itinerary, and below this, your actual timings?

Planned:
Long Buckby 7.25
Rugby 7.32
Rugby 7.44
Macclesfield 8.42

Actual:
Long Buckby 8.35
Rugby 8.46
Rugby 8.53
Macclesfield 9.52

I've just found out that the 7.44 from Rugby actually ran on time, they started a replacement / additional train there. So that definitely means the delay repay claim should go to LNWR.

 

[Haywain]

The only thing that counts in terms of who you claim from is that your first train was heavily delayed. Therefore you claim from the operator of that train, LNR.