Delay repay pingpong - 14th Dec Northern do not travel

[RooseWithAZed]

On the 14th of December I was trying to return from Barrow to London. I only found out about the do not travel order when I got to the station at 11, long after I had checked there would be a return schedule for Sunday when I bought the tickets the day prior.

My original itinerary would have been:

• Barrow (11:37)
• Lancaster (12:59 or 13:40)
• Arrive at Euston at 16:20 at the earliest

My actual journey ended up being:

• Stagecoach X6 bus to Kendal (11:35)
• 40 bus to Oxenholme (13:29)
• Avanti to Preston (around 2pm). This service was absolutely crush loaded. I spent the whole half hour in the accordion gangway and I did not want to stay on it after it sat down at Preston.
• Avanti to Crewe (15:18)
• LNWR to Euston (16:13) since this was booked to arrive 10 minutes before the Avanti I was on, and the one I had been on from Oxenholme, and it was quiet
• Arrived at Euston at half past 6, more than 2 hours late.

Now, I initially made a claim to Northern. They washed their hands of it, because of the do not travel order, and said that all they could do is refund me the portion of the return from Barrow to Lancaster, which they did, and send on the claim to Avanti. Avanti have now said that it is not their delay and they are sending the claim back to Northern. Where do I go from here?

 

[WesternLancer]

On the 14th of December I was trying to return from Barrow to London. I only found out about the do not travel order when I got to the station at 11, long after I had checked there would be a return schedule for Sunday when I bought the tickets the day prior.

My original itinerary would have been:

• Barrow (11:37)
• Lancaster (12:59 or 13:40)
• Arrive at Euston at 16:20 at the earliest

My actual journey ended up being:

• Stagecoach X6 bus to Kendal (11:35)
• 40 bus to Oxenholme (13:29)
• Avanti to Preston (around 2pm). This service was absolutely crush loaded. I spent the whole half hour in the accordion gangway and I did not want to stay on it after it sat down at Preston.
• Avanti to Crewe (15:18)
• LNWR to Euston (16:13) since this was booked to arrive 10 minutes before the Avanti I was on, and the one I had been on from Oxenholme, and it was quiet
• Arrived at Euston at half past 6, more than 2 hours late.

Now, I initially made a claim to Northern. They washed their hands of it, because of the do not travel order, and said that all they could do is refund me the portion of the return from Barrow to Lancaster, which they did, and send on the claim to Avanti. Avanti have now said that it is not their delay and they are sending the claim back to Northern. Where do I go from here?

I suppose this hinges on how the terms of delay- repay are set out in t&c in the event of the ‘Do not travel’ notice

I know that delays and cancellations entitle you to cancel your journey and have your ticket refunded (seperate to D-R) but should you need to persevere with the journey I’m not sure if D-R then applies.

Hopefully someone here perhaps knows.

 

[Belperpete]

I suspect that your rights to delay repay will depend on the timetable that was in place on the day. If the do not travel advice was issued the day before, they may have implemented a revised timetable.

Do not confuse your rights or otherwise to delay repay, with your rights to assistance in the event of disruption. I think Northern are being a bit sneaky by refunding their portion of the ticket, effectively negating the ticket, as no ticket means no rights to either assistance or DR. If I were in your shoes, I would consider refusing the refund, to maintain your rights, and insisting that Northern refund your bus fares. Depends on the relative costs, and whether you have any entitlement to DR.

With the Barrow to Lancaster part of the ticket voided, you effectively had a Lancaster to London ticket. Your entitlement to delay repay from Avanti would probably depend on what train you caught from Lancaster, it's scheduled arrival time in London, and what time you would actually have arrived there had you stayed on the train. You choosing to delay yourself further because you didn't want to travel in a crush loaded train probably wouldn't count.

If you have accepted the refund from Northern for the journey to Lancaster, I doubt that Avanti would pay DR for your journey from Oxenholme, as they would likely claim that you didn't have a valid ticket to travel on their services to Lancaster. You cannot claim delay repay for a journey that you have had refunded.

 

[AlterEgo]

A do not travel advisory issued by the train company doesn't absolve them of liability.

 

[WesternLancer]

So is an appropriately worded appeal to Northern making this point the OP’s best next step?

 

[settlelad]

I got caught in the bad weather Do Not Travel by Northern (affecting trains on Settle Carlisle on 15 Dec). I had been away for the weekend in Scotland, and had not seen the Do Not Travel by Northern. I got to Glasgow Central on Mon 15 Dec expecting to change at Carlisle to get to Settle, but no trains on Settle-Carlisle. I spoke to the very helpful Avanti train manager on the service from Glasgow and I asked to continue to Lancaster and she was fine with that and was helping other passengers similarly affected. WCML was running fine at that point. At Lancaster, no services on the Bentham line either, so I booked an Uber (I would normally try to go Lancaster-Giggleswick and walk from there). I put a claim for the Uber in to Northern as a consequential loss, which they rejected first time (their response indicated they hadn't read my claim very closely, and they also quoted the Cosumer Rights Act at me stating there was relevant wording in the CRA to exempt them from refudning me, which there clearly wasn't that wording: I checked with Which Legal just to be sure). I spoke to the Rail Ombudsman on an interim basis and they pointed me in the direction of their case studies on claiming during severe weather and "Do Not Travel" was in place which made interesting reading. It can be found at https://www.railombudsman.org/en/casestudies/jjl5ha4l4lqckpdruv41is3o. I asked Northern again, asking a bit harder, and they refunded my taxi as a "gesture of goodwill" whilst stating "As the cause of the disruption was due to severe weather conditions and we put Do Not Travel in place, we would not be eligible for any additional costs incurred".

 

[z444z]

“As the cause of the disruption was due to severe weather conditions and we put Do Not Travel in place, we would not be eligible for any additional costs incurred".

“we would not be eligible”

 

[settlelad]

“we would not be eligible”

I know. I didn't think that would escape notice. FWIW, the quote is a direct copy/paste of the e-mail from Northern Rail

 

[z444z]

I know. I didn't think that would escape notice. FWIW, the quote is a direct copy/paste of the e-mail from Northern Rail

Hilarious and unsurprising, thanks for sharing!

 

[AlterEgo]

I got caught in the bad weather Do Not Travel by Northern (affecting trains on Settle Carlisle on 15 Dec). I had been away for the weekend in Scotland, and had not seen the Do Not Travel by Northern. I got to Glasgow Central on Mon 15 Dec expecting to change at Carlisle to get to Settle, but no trains on Settle-Carlisle. I spoke to the very helpful Avanti train manager on the service from Glasgow and I asked to continue to Lancaster and she was fine with that and was helping other passengers similarly affected. WCML was running fine at that point. At Lancaster, no services on the Bentham line either, so I booked an Uber (I would normally try to go Lancaster-Giggleswick and walk from there). I put a claim for the Uber in to Northern as a consequential loss, which they rejected first time (their response indicated they hadn't read my claim very closely, and they also quoted the Cosumer Rights Act at me stating there was relevant wording in the CRA to exempt them from refudning me, which there clearly wasn't that wording: I checked with Which Legal just to be sure). I spoke to the Rail Ombudsman on an interim basis and they pointed me in the direction of their case studies on claiming during severe weather and "Do Not Travel" was in place which made interesting reading. It can be found at https://www.railombudsman.org/en/casestudies/jjl5ha4l4lqckpdruv41is3o. I asked Northern again, asking a bit harder, and they refunded my taxi as a "gesture of goodwill" whilst stating "As the cause of the disruption was due to severe weather conditions and we put Do Not Travel in place, we would not be eligible for any additional costs incurred".

Just to note, the Ombudsman, which is moderately useless, is simply an official mediation service.

They do not decide things based in law, decisions are not binding on subsequent cases, and a decision in one's favour or otherwise does not affect one's statutory rights.