Delay repay advice

[m77ews]

Hi

I regularly travel from Bristol to Preston, it’s usually Cross Country from Temple Meads to New St and then Avanti to Preston. The time given to swap usually 12 or 13 mins.

My recent journey the Avanti service was cancelled and the next service was 1hr later, that was late arriving in Preston so I was delayed by just over an hour.

I logged my claim by Avanti rejected as the XC train was late in by 2mins giving me just 10mins to change vs a minimum connection time of 12. Their point is valid in that they arrived late, but I could have made my Avanti train if it was cancelled and it feels like Avanti are trying to escape paying on somewhat of a technicality. Just because a train arrived under the minimum connection time doesn’t mean I am unable to catch the next train, there is many circumstances this has happened and I have made the connection.

I have had this issue before, first claim rejected so appealed, that also rejected so I spoke to a human at Avanti and they paid it out. In this occasion however they haven’t.

Any advice welcome, in my view Avanti should be covering the cost so how can I challenge? Does stating the fact they haven’t previously paid out under the same circumstances count?

Thanks

 

[Watershed]

In a sense it's largely irrelevant, because they should be passing on the case to CrossCountry if they want to say they're not liable. XC offer Delay Repay just like Avanti do - the only difference is that XC have a 30 minute threshold for paying out whilst Avanti's is 15 mins.

There are mixed views on what the correct legal position is in a situation like this, both on the question of "I would have made the connection anyway" (i.e. the minimum connection time, MCT, being 'breached' didn't make a material difference) and "who is liable even both operators' services were disrupted".

The traditional view is that any breach of the MCT, however small, renders the "breaching" TOC on the inbound service liable for Delay Repay. That is on the basis that it cannot be assumed you will be able to make the connection in less time - the minimum exists for a reason, to ensure consistency of claims handling if nothing else.