I've put in a number of delay repay claims over the last couple years (this is what happens if you have to use Thameslink) and the amounts received for similar delays seems to vary. I would have assumed there is a formula for calculating what is due but this can't be so. For example a few weeks ago when the core was properly up the spout due to repeated signal problems at City Thameslink I have received two approved payments of 50p for delays of 15-29 minutes. Back in September a delay of the same proportion fetched a payment of £2. What's going on here?
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Delay repay amounts seemingly random.
- Thread starter Thebaz
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What tickets are you travelling on? Delay Repay is paid as a percentage of the cost of your ticket. 15-29 mins gives you 25% of a single or 12.5% of a return; it doubles to 50/25% for 30-59 mins. If you have a season ticket then compensation is paid as a percentage of the daily value, which is calculated based on the typical number of weekdays you would likely have travelled on (assuming a 5 day a week commute).
Ah that would probably explain it. I usually have a monthly 1-6 but have switched to weekly for December (as I'll only be commuting until tomorrow.)
For future reference, you can get 'custom period' season tickets, for example 1 month and 19 days. The extra days are priced at a comparable rate to the base monthly season ticket (which costs 3.84x a weekly) so it generally works out cheaper than getting additional weekly season tickets in a situation like this.
It also works out quite well if you have a period of planned leave for example - you could buy a custom period season ticket until the last day you're commuting and then again from the first day you come back.
Even in a normal month, you can get a custom period season ticket just over a month long (e.g. 1 month 4 days) to cover 5 weeks' travel and thus avoid paying for a season ticket roughly one weekend per month.
An annual ticket is 40x a weekly, which works out to about the same as a 'custom period' 10 month 13 day season would be. So an annual ticket would be better if commuting more than 10½ months per year, provided that you can afford it in one go.
But you have to consider the 'opportunity cost' of effectively lending the railway that money in advance vs earning interest on it. At current rates that's around 2% of the cost of the season ticket, which reduces the discount slightly.
Annual season tickets are partly cheaper because they know people will take time off work for holiday and possibly also sick leave. Hence custom period season tickets work out at a not dissimilar cost - especially if you take your holiday in blocks rather than random days.
Unfortunately I don't think that's possible. You can still get a Travelcard for the same price elsewhere, but obviously you won't get the advantage of being able to extend journeys at Oyster PAYG rates.
However, you could buy a custom period season ticket for fulfilment onto a Key smartcard, and activate KeyGo to be able to use PAYG on your Key card for journeys beyond Zones 1-6 on GTR services. KeyGo covers the majority of the GTR network, so its validity is broader than Oyster. It charges either Oyster/contactless PAYG fares or 'paper' fares, whichever is cheaper for the journey in question.
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