Delay Repay when employer buys the ticket

[MotCO]

My employer buys my rail tickets for journeys to attend meetings through an agency. The other day I was delayed by more than 1 hour on an outward journey and applied for a delay repay. I opted for a cheque, made payable to myself.

The moral question I have is do I keep the refund myself since I was inconvenienced by the delay, or do I repay my employer since thay bought the ticket? Would the answer be different if I was delayed on my journey home and thereforethe delay ate into my personal time?

 

[Hadders]

You’d need to ask your employer the question. My employer has no problem with me keeping delay repay compensation.

 

[najaB]

The moral question I have is do I keep the refund myself since I was inconvenienced by the delay, or do I repay my employer since thay bought the ticket?

+1 to the suggestion that you speak with your employer if you're in doubt.

My view has always been that if my employer didn't incur additional expenses as a result of a delay/cancellation then they are only due any refund, I am entitled to any compensation.

 

[87 027]

My employer's view is that we are not entitled to keep Delay Repay payments ourselves in such circumstances - refunds should be credited back to the budget that paid for the ticket and that if the delays eat into personal time they will consider granting time off in lieu instead

 

[Ibex]

I think it would be best to ask your manager. A friend of mine once got over £100 back through delay repay on one of Virgin's ludicrous £300-ish anytime tickets that only companies are crazy enough to buy. They didn't bat an eyelid when he claimed it back. Your employer might be the complete opposite though so best to ask!

 

[Puffing Devil]

It would make sense to check with your employer - either manager or HR.

Personally, I think the dividing line is whether you are paid to travel or not. If you're travelling in your own time, I would say that the payment is yours.

 

[xotGD]

If the company wants the delay repay money then someone in finance should make the claim, not the traveller.

 

[Harpers Tate]

My former employer had published policy that any such reimbursement was kept by the employee.

 

[TUC]

Our travel policy at work states that if you acquire any benefits as a result of work travel-such as Delay Repay or hotel points-these should be used towards future work travel bookings. For Delay Repay I do this by using RTVs to book my own work travel from time to time.

 

[Polarbear]

Where I work, we are encouraged to claim delay repay where possible, but that this is credited back to the company account.

I've done two trips to London for work in December, and have been delayed on both occasions. Delay repay would have kicked in for both journeys. I didn't bother making any claim though as there isn't anything in it for me, given that it's my employer that would benefit from my inconvenience.

And before anyone asks, my employer won't readily agree to giving me extra time credits to cover such delays.

 

[najaB]

And before anyone asks, my employer won't readily agree to giving me extra time credits to cover such delays.

Your employer seems like a bit of a [expletive], IMO.

 

[bb21]

I have always been of the opinion that any employer who bickers with staff over things like this are really quite stingy and tight.

 

[gray1404]

My personal view is that it should go to the traveller as they are the one who has suffered the delay on the day of travel and all the inconvenience that goes with it.

 

[Chrisgr31]

All rail travel I do is booked through our online travel portal. There is no ability to pay my rail voucher etc

Not sure what the policy on delay repay is, but I have no ability to spend any vouchers on work travel.

 

[cuccir]

Do employers have any legal right to claim the Delay Repay cash, in the absence of any stated guidance?

In other words, is it classifiable as some sort of benefit gained from working that legally you should give to your employer, unless they sate otherwise?

The reason I ask is that if the answer is no, and your employer has not got any documents instructing your what to do, then I'd claim it and not mention it. Why alert them to the fact that they could ask for the money??

Clearly, if there's a policy on it or if the law states otherwise, then follow those. But if it's legal to claim and keep it, then do that!!!!

 

[Bletchleyite]

My personal view is that it should go to the traveller as they are the one who has suffered the delay on the day of travel and all the inconvenience that goes with it.

I thought about this one after the last discussion, and my opinion moved towards the idea that my policy if I owned a company would be that it is for the person who was inconvenienced.

So if you're delayed on the way *to* work and so your employer loses time, it's theirs. If you're delayed on the way home and you lose time (*and* I'm not paying you for that extra time, i.e. you're salaried rather than waged[1]) it's yours. Or if you end up working late/through lunch to make up, again the employee gets it.

But then again, there's something that just feels different about RTVs vs. money.

But practically it is a contractual matter.

[1] As if I'm paying you for the extra time, it's the company's to partly compensate for paying you in that way.

 

[Puffing Devil]

Do employers have any legal right to claim the Delay Repay cash, in the absence of any stated guidance?

In other words, is it classifiable as some sort of benefit gained from working that legally you should give to your employer, unless they sate otherwise?

The reason I ask is that if the answer is no, and your employer has not got any documents instructing your what to do, then I'd claim it and not mention it. Why alert them to the fact that they could ask for the money??

Clearly, if there's a policy on it or if the law states otherwise, then follow those. But if it's legal to claim and keep it, then do that!!!!

This is the legal/moral boundary. If you have a company that takes exception to you keeping the compensation and you're discovered claiming behind their backs, you're not going to be in a very good place at work - even if the formal disciplinary process doesn't apply, there will most likely be a cloud over you.

I'm not saying this is right - it's what may happen.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Do employers have any legal right to claim the Delay Repay cash, in the absence of any stated guidance?

In other words, is it classifiable as some sort of benefit gained from working that legally you should give to your employer, unless they sate otherwise?

The reason I ask is that if the answer is no, and your employer has not got any documents instructing your what to do, then I'd claim it and not mention it. Why alert them to the fact that they could ask for the money??

Clearly, if there's a policy on it or if the law states otherwise, then follow those. But if it's legal to claim and keep it, then do that!!!!

The counter-argument to that is that, if it is paid as money at least, it is money that the business trip didn't cost. A comparison would perhaps be that you had a meal but the service was poor and you complained in retrospect and got some money back - it wasn't your money that paid for the meal, so it isn't your money back either.

Vouchers are oddly different in some ways, though - a voucher for a free meal due to a bad meal doesn't seem quite the same as cash.

 

[Polarbear]

Your employer seems like a bit of a [expletive], IMO.

Off topic, but just to put my earlier comment into context - back in (I think) 2010, there was a large snowfall in the Merseyside area. As normally happens, there was, shall we say a "reluctance" on the part of the senior managers to let anyone go home early, which started to backfire quite rapidly as first buses were withdrawn due to safety concerns, and the rail network was struggling too. I eventually managed to persuade my manager that it was in their interests, as well as my own to let me go home, and the resultant journey took over 3 hours for just under 20 miles.

The next day, I managed to turn up to work by using my car - by then, the roads had been gritted & as I live on a main road, the journey was reasonable. It then took a week of e-mails, memo's and personal representations to get credit for the time I had lost for leaving the office early the day before, which was begrudgingly given in the end.

Thankfully, things have changed since then, but I still reckon I'd have a hard time asking for time credits where I encountered any significant delay on the railway whilst travelling for work reasons.

 

[Bletchleyite]

This is the legal/moral boundary. If you have a company that takes exception to you keeping the compensation and you're discovered claiming behind their backs, you're not going to be in a very good place at work - even if the formal disciplinary process doesn't apply, there will most likely be a cloud over you.

I'm not saying this is right - it's what may happen.

Agreed - employment requires a relationship of good faith to work well, and one party doing something they suspect the other won't like behind their back is going to break that good faith.

 

[najaB]

A comparison would perhaps be that you had a meal but the service was poor and you complained in retrospect and got some money back - it wasn't your money that paid for the meal, so it isn't your money back either.

The difference though is that getting Delay Repay isn't the same as getting a refund. It's splitting hairs to an extent but to extend your analogy: what would your position be if, rather than money back for poor service, the restaurant had a bad case of food poisoning and decided to give everyone who dined there that night £5 as a goodwill gesture? Is your employer entitled to the £5 since they paid for the meal?

 

[greatkingrat]

Of course, in practice, if a company has a policy that states the company is entitled to any Delay Repay compensation, all that will happen is staff won't bother claiming in the first place and nobody gets any compensation.

What happens with TOCs that operate automatic Delay Repay (eg Virgin Trains advance tickets)? If the original ticket was booked through a corporate account presumably the refund would be credited back to that account as well?

 

[Puffing Devil]

Of course, in practice, if a company has a policy that states the company is entitled to any Delay Repay compensation, all that will happen is staff won't bother claiming in the first place and nobody gets any compensation.

What happens with TOCs that operate automatic Delay Repay (eg Virgin Trains advance tickets)? If the original ticket was booked through a corporate account presumably the refund would be credited back to that account as well?

That does happen and shows as a credit on my Amex Card - though most of my business bookings now go through trainsplit.

 

[30907]

The organisations that pay for my travel and my wife's (closely related but legally separate) reckon that on the outward journey the compensation is theirs and homeward it's ours - a bit like the different rules applied by HMRC to business mileage involving both home and workplace).

 

[Bletchleyite]

The difference though is that getting Delay Repay isn't the same as getting a refund.

I'm not sure that holds true. As it's based on, and capped at, the price paid for the ticket, I can't see how it can't be seen as a partial refund for partial delivery of the service paid for. (The service paid for being transportation from point A to point B at the time offered; the partial delivery being transportation from point A to point B but *not* at the time offered, with the "refund" being roughly proportional to how far off the original time it was).

It's splitting hairs to an extent but to extend your analogy: what would your position be if, rather than money back for poor service, the restaurant had a bad case of food poisoning and decided to give everyone who dined there that night £5 as a goodwill gesture? Is your employer entitled to the £5 since they paid for the meal?

An interesting question. Arguably yes, though I think practically that'd come down to the "who was adversely affected" judgement and any employer trying to claw that back in that scenario would be being more than a little tight.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The organisations that pay for my travel and my wife's (closely related but legally separate) reckon that on the outward journey the compensation is theirs and homeward it's ours - a bit like the different rules applied by HMRC to business mileage involving both home and workplace).

That seems to me to be a not unreasonable take on it given that the employer is usually inconvenienced (lost working hours) if it's the outward and the employee is (lost leisure time) if it's the return. Of course there are exceptions e.g. if you are travelling Sunday evening to work Monday-Friday the next week a delay on the Sunday eats your leisure time.

 

[najaB]

I'm not sure that holds true. As it's based on, and capped at, the price paid for the ticket, I can't see how it can't be seen as a partial refund for partial delivery of the service paid for.

Because you have separate refund rights under the NRCoT. Delay Repay is a different (and generally more generous) scheme.

 

[matt_world2004]

What happens when your employer has a season ticket reinbursement/discount scheme who keeps the dr then

 

[Bletchleyite]

Because you have separate refund rights under the NRCoT. Delay Repay is a different (and generally more generous) scheme.

You can get a refund if you don't travel. You can also get a refund if the service was unsatisfactory and you did. I don't see why one being a refund makes the other one not - it's still money being returned based on what was paid up to a maximum of what was paid. It's not like EU261 compensation which has no relevance to the sum paid.

"Repay" is a further clue. You get repaid. Getting money repaid is getting money back. Getting money back is a refund.

It's a refund.

 

[AlterEgo]

"Repay" is a further clue. You get repaid. Getting money repaid is getting money back. Getting money back is a refund.

It's a refund.

“Delay Repay” is only named such because it rhymes and sounds good. It’s not a refund in the conventional sense.

Delay Repay can come to more than the cost of the ticket in some cases (delays on outbound and return for example). It can, and often is, paid to parties who were inconvenienced but didn’t pay for the ticket in the first place, like employees travelling for work or to parties using travel warrants.

I can’t think of many other examples of “refunds” that would satisfy the exemptions above.