Delay Repay - Cross Country

[Grumpy Git]

I was travelling from Liverpool South Parkway to Cheltenham Spa on Saturday morning, changing from the LNW 1G45 to the XC 1V49 at Stafford.

IV49 got stuck for 2 hours just outside Cheltenahm Spa by a points failure and we eventually pulled in 2 hours late.

I've just submitted my delay repay to XC and after initially receiving a case acknowledgement number, I then got a "case passed on" email from XC advising my service is not operated by them, but by West Midlands Trains!!!!

Is this normal practice for XC when a delay repay claim is sent in?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Oct 2023 ==

Edit: For the record, I brought my (split) tickets via the Raileasy site linked to forum: LPY-ACB / ACB-WVH / WVH-CNM.

 

[yorkie]

This sort of failure happens more often than you might think; there are many reports of it happening.

I expect West Midlands Trains (who operate services branded LNR) will likely pass it back to XC.

But I wouldn't just leave the companies to sort it out themselves; I would put in an appeal to XC to say that they need to handle the claim, not WMT, as you made the connection from WMT to XC and it was XC who delayed you.

There are several threads relating to this issue, along with threads proposing making changes to the way DR claims are processed.

Let us know how you get on, but for the the time being there isn't anything else we can add.

 

[Grumpy Git]

Yorkie,

I have replied to XC's 'case passed on' email, pointing out their error. No response as yet.

Is this sufficient, or is there a more formal route I must take?

 

[sheff1]

I have replied to XC's 'case passed on' email, pointing out their error. No response as yet.

Is this sufficient, or is there a more formal route I must take?

XC seem to like passing things to WMT. When I was delayed by XC between Birmingham New St and Burton on Trent a few months back they passed my claim to WMT. I replied saying I failed to understand why they had done this as they were the sole operator on said route and asked them to pay me the compensation to which I was entitled. Other than the auto response they did not reply directly to my email but did settle the claim without me needing to chase further.

 

[Grumpy Git]

I rang XC's 'Customer Support' telephone earlier today. It took a while on hold before a very pleasant lady answered. It seems XC are well aware that their 'bots' look to blame other TOCs, but it seems it causes them more work in the long run as they have to answer calls from the likes of me afterwards?

Anyway, as promised by the lady I spoke to, I subsequently received a confirmation email to say I would get a 100% refund paid directly into my bank.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 31 Oct 2023 ==

Update below:
Update, the 10 working days for my refund to arrive was last Wednesday (25th Oct.) and as of today no refund was forthcoming, so I just called and spoke to them again.

Their excuse was "there are two journeys on your claim, which one are you claiming for"; this despite their original email showing the correct amount for the ONE journey I had claimed and the 'phantom' journey made no sense to me whatsoever.

Apparently I will now receive the refund in due course, I'm not holding my breath.