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Refund for National Rail Strike June 2022

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Foxy

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Can anyone advise me please? I have tickets with Avanti for the 24th and 27th June 2022, which are in-between dates of the strikes in June (21, 23, 25) but will still be adversely affected by the strikes. The tickets are Advance and, having had problems with the digital tickets with Avanti before, I have collected the paper tickets from the rail station. Do I have any chance of getting a refund? I know that, normally, it is not possible but believe that different rules are in place because of the strike. It is not clear from the website. Any advice would be very much appreciated.
 
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ainsworth74

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I'm not sure the industry at large has annouced arrangements for those who already hold tickets.
 

skyhigh

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I'm not sure the industry at large has annouced arrangements for those who already hold tickets.
Under 'Book with Confidence' you can get a refund as a Rail Travel Voucher if you decide you don't want to travel whatever happens. If you want a cash refund and it's not a strike day, I imagine it'll be a case of wait and see what the revised timetables are for those days. If the train you're booked on is running as scheduled I wouldn't be surprised if no cash refund is on offer.
 

Foxy

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Thank you for your reply. I did read somewhere about 'easements' in the rules, but it is not clear.
 

Starmill

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If there's advice not to travel in place, you'll be entitled to a refund by the method of payment i.e. over and above the current scheme to swap tickets for a voucher.

You can be sure that there will be advice in place not to travel on strike days on all national rail services (except maybe for Island Line). On the non-strike days it is going to be a case of wait and see. So I'd advise not doing anything currently and awaiting further information.
 

Surreytraveller

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If there's advice not to travel in place, you'll be entitled to a refund by the method of payment i.e. over and above the current scheme to swap tickets for a voucher.

You can be sure that there will be advice in place not to travel on strike days on all national rail services (except maybe for Island Line). On the non-strike days it is going to be a case of wait and see. So I'd advise not doing anything currently and awaiting further information.
Why Island Line?
 

mmh

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Thank you for your reply. I did read somewhere about 'easements' in the rules, but it is not clear.
If you bought your tickets on the Avanti website I believe they may refund you to your card - they did that to me about a year ago despite the website saying it would be vouchers.
 

Foxy

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Thank you everyone for the information. I will wait for a while before doing anything. If anyone gets any more details I would be grateful to hear from you.
 

Starmill

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I did say "except maybe for Island Line". That is, there could still be advice not to travel on Island Line, but it's not currently entirely clear.

Unfortunately we're all just going to need to wait to find out. I do appreciate that it's frustrating, I myself would rather like to know by now what is expected to run on the Wednesday for work purposes but unfortunately nobody knows yet.
 

janb

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Can anyone advise me please? I have tickets with Avanti for the 24th and 27th June 2022, which are in-between dates of the strikes in June (21, 23, 25) but will still be adversely affected by the strikes. The tickets are Advance and, having had problems with the digital tickets with Avanti before, I have collected the paper tickets from the rail station. Do I have any chance of getting a refund? I know that, normally, it is not possible but believe that different rules are in place because of the strike. It is not clear from the website. Any advice would be very much appreciated.
According to my interpretation of the Avanti website 24th would be a full refund, if 27th is the return portion of the same trip then I guess that would be included. They do however confuse things slightly by mentioning vouchers for advances further down the page when they speak of full refund further up. https://www.avantiwestcoast.co.uk/travel-information/plan-your-journey/strike
 

Starmill

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They do however confuse things slightly by mentioning vouchers for advances further down the page when they speak of full refund further up. https://www.avantiwestcoast.co.uk/travel-information/plan-your-journey/strike
That's really very unhelpful of them isn't it. It's incorrect of them to imply that a customer with an Advance bought from an Avanti station or the website / app isn't eligible for a refund on the day.

Customers can rely on their rights under the Conditions of Travel to a refund by whatever method they paid in if their service is disrupted and their tickets are not used.
 

Foxy

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Thank you everyone. It does seem to be looking more hopeful. Perhaps I need to give it a couple of days to get clarified by Avanti, before making the request.
 

Watershed

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Thank you everyone. It does seem to be looking more hopeful. Perhaps I need to give it a couple of days to get clarified by Avanti, before making the request.
I would wait to see what timetables are announced for the days in between the strike dates.
 

Leisurefirst

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Hi,
I have Off-Peak Return tickets for a journey the return leg of which is on a strike day.
I can't work out what the refund situation is with returns.
Half the return price for the unused leg (will have to try and get coach - the date is non-negotiable) or just the difference between a single and the return?
 

blakey1152

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I got a full refund of advance tickets for the strike day and was told they would refund for my return ticket even though it wasn't a strike day.
Avanti were really good and sorted it in two days.
 

Starmill

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Hi,
I have Off-Peak Return tickets for a journey the return leg of which is on a strike day.
I can't work out what the refund situation is with returns.
Half the return price for the unused leg (will have to try and get coach - the date is non-negotiable) or just the difference between a single and the return?
Is there an Advance available for your outward journey? If there is perhaps you could book that and then refund the whole off peak return.

It's not clear that there's a codified right to a refund of 50% of a return in these circumstances. There is a clear right to a refund if the difference between what you paid and what you used however.
 

Watershed

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Hi,
I have Off-Peak Return tickets for a journey the return leg of which is on a strike day.
I can't work out what the refund situation is with returns.
Half the return price for the unused leg (will have to try and get coach - the date is non-negotiable) or just the difference between a single and the return?
There isn't anything in the NRCoT or PRO which explicitly sets out the method of calculation.

Obviously the retailer may argue it is just the difference between the return and the cost of a single, but that may well be a derisory sum and you could quite reasonably argue that you would not have agreed to buy a single if that had been the price on offer. Indeed, it might have been considerably cheaper to buy just an Advance.

I expect the coach is cheaper either way, but if not, and there is no provision of rail or rail replacement services by the TOC, you do ultimately still have the alternative option of exercising your right to be re-routed to your destination by alternative transport. Which, in as many words, means that if the TOC refused to rebook you on a coach etc., you could rebook yourself and then reclaim the cost of doing so.
 

Leisurefirst

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Is there an Advance available for your outward journey? If there is perhaps you could book that and then refund the whole off peak return.

It's not clear that there's a codified right to a refund of 50% of a return in these circumstances. There is a clear right to a refund if the difference between what you paid and what you used however.

There isn't anything in the NRCoT or PRO which explicitly sets out the method of calculation.

Obviously the retailer may argue it is just the difference between the return and the cost of a single, but that may well be a derisory sum and you could quite reasonably argue that you would not have agreed to buy a single if that had been the price on offer. Indeed, it might have been considerably cheaper to buy just an Advance.

I expect the coach is cheaper either way, but if not, and there is no provision of rail or rail replacement services by the TOC, you do ultimately still have the alternative option of exercising your right to be re-routed to your destination by alternative transport. Which, in as many words, means that if the TOC refused to rebook you on a coach etc., you could rebook yourself and then reclaim the cost of doing so.
Thank you both.
The journey is Glasgow QS to Oban.
There are unfortunately no advances available any more.
Annoyingly I could have bought very cheap ones when they first went on sale but wasn't totally sure whether we were going to want the first or second service out of QS as I wanted to possibly do something quickly in Glasgow just after the first departure so bought the Off-Peak returns.
Ironically I booked us on the second train out for the purposes of buying the ticket and when I went this morning to check the arrival time I found out it's not actually running, cut in ScotRail's temporary timetable so unless we want to wait until after noon, we will have to get the first train which I am worried will be rammed.
(It's not great that LNER who I bought the tickets through are still showing the cancelled train as being my departure on the app.
I would never have known if I hadn't checked for another reason altogether this morning).
Scottish Citylink have tkts just now for £11.20 each to return.
The whole journey would be cheaper and around the same length with them but I've never done the Oban branch so wanted to do the train. (Also we are coming up on the Sleeper that morning so was easier and safer in case of delays to do the whole journey by rail).
 
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