Delay repay vs refund for cancelled return part of an offpeak day return

[Skymonster]

I recently embarked on a trip on a route where the Offpeak Day Return fare is a mere 10p more than the Anytime Single. The latter is the only single fare available. I bought the Offpeak Day Return from a TVM, intending of course to travel both ways. The outbound trip went fine but while I was at my destination the line became blocked and the train I intended to use to return was cancelled. As the service is only hourly but paralleled by a half-hourly bus route (albeit that the bus takes somewhat longer), lacking any information or reassurance from staff about when the the line would reopen, I decided to take the bus. I had to pay for the bus, as there was no rail ticket acceptance in place. Upon getting back to my origin on the [somewhat slower] bus, I asked the railway ticket office about getting a REFUND on the unused return portion of my rail ticket. The staff member pecked at a keyboard then told me they could only refund me 10p, which is the difference between the return I bought and a single - because I’d already used the outbound part of the return ticket for a single journey.

This seemed rather unfair to me - I really thought the railway should have refunded 50%. But despite my polite suggestion I should get half of what I’d paid back because I’d only been provided with half the service, and observations that refunding only 10p meant I was out of pocket because I’d paid somewhat more than that to come back on the bus, the ticket office stuck to the decision. But, they said: seeing as the next train actually did operate late and would have gotten me back more than an hour late, I could claim DELAY REPAY for an hour plus as if I’d been on that later train and that would get me 50% of my fare back.

Hmmm. My understanding is that if I didn’t actually use the train for the return, claiming delay repay is not appropriate. However, it will be difficult for the railway to prove I didn’t use the train to return as I was on a paper ticket and there were no barriers in operation. But, I suspect the advice I was given is wrong. Nevertheless I am out of pocket through no fault of my own, and while the numbers aren’t huge, I believe morally if not contractually the railway owes me 50% of what I paid back.

Thoughts please…

 

[MrJeeves]

For journeys affected by disruption resulting in the return portion of a ticket being unusable or a customer.abandoning their return journey, a 50% refund is due.

The rule about refunding to the cost of the single only applies when the customer changes their mind, and not during disruption.

This is the internal guidance staff should.follow for refunds under Condition 30.1 of the NRCoT.

If I were you, I'd be politely writing to customer services of whichever TOC sold the ticket to you and asking for the 50% refund you're due. As you state, delay repay is not the correct way to deal with this situation, even if it does get you the correct amount of money back.