Split ticket validity if train cancelled?

[Howardh]

I have (thanks to this site's ticketing engine!) a split ticket Preston/Oxenholme/Carlisle; all on one Avanti train and it's advance.

If the train is cancelled, do I have to get the next (or previous possibly) service which has to be Avanti; and does it have to call at Oxenholme to make the ticket valid? Or can I catch any following Avanti and maybe even TPE even if they don't call at Oxenholme?

Thanks in advance!

 

[jfollows]

Technically you have to get an earlier or later Avanti service which calls at Oxenholme.
Definitely not TPE.
Get an Avanti service and seek out the train conductor to obtain permission. It’s unlikely to be a problem but it’s better to ask than to assume.

 

[Howardh]

Technically you have to get an earlier or later Avanti service which calls at Oxenholme.
Definitely not TPE.
Get an Avanti service and seek out the train conductor to obtain permission. It’s unlikely to be a problem but it’s better to ask than to assume.

Thanks, glad I asked - looks like one of the downsides of splitting, especially if there aren't any trains after calling at the middle station. If it happens I will ask, also take a timetable with me!

Edit; there's a train exactly an hour later which stops at Oxenholme; so no worries - unless that gets cancelled too!!

 

[OnTheBuffers]

If it arrives at destination exactly an hour later you presumably get a 100% Delay Repay compensation? Or a fractional amount if a conductor allows you to travel a bit earlier.

 

[thejuggler]

When my wife had a split ticket over three legs. Leeds - Birmingham, Bham - Gloucester, Glos - Cardiff the first leg was delayed, so no chance of the Gloucester leg being made. The on train manager endorsed her ticket and provided a note with a reroute via Bristol TM.

 

[Howardh]

If it arrives at destination exactly an hour later you presumably get a 100% Delay Repay compensation? Or a fractional amount if a conductor allows you to travel a bit earlier.

That's a good point, but if it's a split ticket that would mean two applications for DR? If I'd booked through Avanti (2 separate tickets) they would automatically refund DR, but that won't happen as I haven't used them.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That's a good point, but if it's a split ticket that would mean two applications for DR? If I'd booked through Avanti (2 separate tickets) they would automatically refund DR, but that won't happen as I haven't used them.

Delay Repay is paid on the whole journey, it would actually be fraudulent (if hard to detect) to claim it for individual tickets in a split.

 

[OnTheBuffers]

Delay Repay is paid on the whole journey, it would actually be fraudulent (if hard to detect) to claim it for individual tickets in a split.

Why would it be fraudulent? I may be missing something as I don't use split ticketing much. If you have a (made up) itinerary 10:00 Preston - 10:27 Oxenholme / 10:30 Oxenholme - 11:15 Carlisle and the train is cancelled so you use 11:00 - 11:27 / 11:30 - 12:15 variants isn't first ticket an hour late arriving, and then second? So you claim 100% of each?

I can see how it'd be different if you were changing trains and the first was on time but second delayed - that would be a claim only on the 2nd one I think.

 

[AlterEgo]

I can see how it'd be different if you were changing trains and the first was on time but second delayed - that would be a claim only on the 2nd one I think.

No? Why would it be?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Why would it be fraudulent? I may be missing something as I don't use split ticketing much. If you have a (made up) itinerary 10:00 Preston - 10:27 Oxenholme / 10:30 Oxenholme - 11:15 Carlisle and the train is cancelled so you use 11:00 - 11:27 / 11:30 - 12:15 variants isn't first ticket an hour late arriving, and then 2nd? So you claim 100% of each?

If you arrive in Carlisle over an hour late, you make one claim for a one hour delay to the complete journey, submitting both tickets, and receiving a full refund of both of them.

The issue arises if you have a longer gap.

If for example you have a split journey which involves 10:00 Preston-10:45 Manchester Picc on one Advance ticket, and 11:30 Manchester Picc-13:30 Euston on another, bought as a split from Trainsplit or similar so with the clear intention that it makes up one journey (note, times are made up), and that first train is half an hour late so you still make your connection, making a Delay Repay claim for that first ticket is arguably fraudulent because you considered it one journey (and would I'm sure have availed yourself of the rights you have because it's one journey if that first train was 50 minutes late rather than buying a new ticket for the second leg).

It's near enough unenforceable, but really in principle you have in your mind if it's one journey or several before you start, and should only avail yourself of the rights relevant to whatever you decide, i.e. whether you want connection protection (as it's one journey) or you want DR on the components separately (because it's two). To me it's pretty clear that if you bought it as a through journey on a single itinerary using a splitting site then it is one journey, not several.

If too many people take the mick we end up with rights being diluted, e.g a rule change that one ticket = one journey as is universal over in mainland Europe. The rules are not 100% clear on this but if one tries to have one's cake and eat it, then the railway often likes to tighten things up (as it did for example with regard to what constitutes an abandoned journey).

 

[Acathater]

Why would it be fraudulent? I may be missing something as I don't use split ticketing much. If you have a (made up) itinerary 10:00 Preston - 10:27 Oxenholme / 10:30 Oxenholme - 11:15 Carlisle and the train is cancelled so you use 11:00 - 11:27 / 11:30 - 12:15 variants isn't first ticket an hour late arriving, and then second? So you claim 100% of each?

I can see how it'd be different if you were changing trains and the first was on time but second delayed - that would be a claim only on the 2nd one I think.

But surely you simply make one claim covering both components of the trip?

 

[321362]

A bit off-topic, but if I'm split ticketing a trip with multiple legs, I'll buy tickets which overlap on the legs - it isn't much more expensive and means I get more back if trains are delayed/cancelled.

Example: Trip is Stratford International to Eastbourne, changing at Ashford.
Tickets: Stratford Intl - Ham Street, Ham Street - Eastbourne
If the first leg (southeastern high speed) is delayed 15 minutes, I can get more delay repay as it also causes me to miss my hourly Ashford connection to Ham Street, so I "arrive" at Ham Street an hour late, meaning I get 100% refund on the Stratford-Ham Street leg. Whereas if I listened to split ticketing which only offered splitting at Ashford, I would have got less delay repay.

(true story, but numbers are probably slightly off). Also no idea how legal this is.

edit: typos

 

[OnTheBuffers]

No? Why would it be?

Perhaps because I misunderstand what split tickets are. I view them as being the same as (for example) deciding you wanted to have a walk around Oxehholme at the weekend so buy the first ticket on Monday. Then on Tuesday a friend suggests meeting in Carlisle instead, so you buy a ticket for the second portion. If you buy them for same train then both will be cancelled and you claim for both. If you had purchased Oxenholme to Carlisle on a 5 minutes later train because it was a bit cheaper and only that train was cancelled your first ticket would have got you to where it was supposed to on time.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 May 2026 ==

But surely you simply make one claim covering both components of the trip?

I can see how submitting as one claim might be accepted - but in my mind it is a refund of two fares / tickets which may have had the same delay / cancellation. As above I may be misunderstanding but on the occasion where I might have had a split fare at Watford Junction where train arrived there on time but then sat outside Euston for 90 minutes I'd only expect to get the 1h+ delay on WatJ-EUS accepted. And if the delay caused it to be over an hour late at WatJ and then EUS a payment for both.

 

[AlterEgo]

Perhaps because I misunderstand what split tickets are. I view them as being the same as (for example) deciding you wanted to have a walk around Oxehholme at the weekend so buy the first ticket on Monday. Then on Tuesday a friend suggests meeting in Carlisle instead, so you buy a ticket for the second portion. If you buy them for same train then both will be cancelled and you claim for both. If you had purchased Oxenholme to Carlisle on a 5 minutes later train because it was a bit cheaper and only that train was cancelled your first ticket would have got you to where it was supposed to on time.

The bolded bit is not relevant. You're still making one journey to Carlisle, using multiple tickets. You can claim for both.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I can see how submitting as one claim might be accepted - but in my mind it is a refund of two fares / tickets which may have had the same delay / cancellation. As above I may be misunderstanding but on the occasion where I might have had a split fare at Watford Junction where train arrived there on time but then sat outside Euston for 90 minutes I'd only expect to get the 1h+ delay on WatJ-EUS accepted. And if the delay caused it to be over an hour late at WatJ and then EUS a payment for both.

No. It's one journey so you would get the payment based on the full journey and nothing regarding the intermediate stop.

You can instead consider it two journeys if you want (assuming you change trains at the place the tickets meet, it would be pushing it to say using two tickets on one train was anything other than one journey) but if you did you shouldn't avail yourself of stuff like connection protection between the two tickets if the second booked train is missed. It's either one journey or two, it can't be both.

Near enough unenforceable, but as I said people taking the mick to excess tend to result in disadvantageous changes for passengers.

 

[Haywain]

Also no idea how legal this is.

Claiming for something that didn't happen (as in, you were not delayed on the journey you made)? I think you've a very good idea how legal that is.

 

[Acathater]

Hypothetical question, but how do the rules work in a case like this:

Assume I'm in Preston with the second half of an off-peak day return ticket back to Carlisle, valid on any train. No seat reservation.
I get to the station, intending to catch whatever happens to be the next train heading north. I check the live departures screen, find it should be an Avanti leaving almost immediately (for the sake of argument lets presume 20:00), but it's delayed by an hour. So instead I could catch a TPE expected on time and leaving at 20:05, but I don't - instead I wait for the delayed Avanti. Is that delay valid for repay? Or would the train company expect me to catch the first available train?
Taking that a step further, assuming the ticket I had was a credit card sized one without barcode so couldn't be scanned (and few guards now bother to clip or imprint), what is there to stop travel on the TPE and then claim for the delayed Avanti anyway?
I'm not suggesting anyone should do this, but it just strikes me that there's a black hole there
What made me think about this was a late-running Avanti I boarded a couple of weeks ago at Preston by chance simply because it was the next to arrive.....which ended up getting held even further while the next TPE was allowed to pass it on time. I didn't claim - for me there were only a few minutes in it, but the coach was full of passengers from London rubbing hands with glee at the prospect of repayments for a 70+ minute delay

 

[Bletchleyite]

Assume I'm in Preston with the second half of an off-peak day return ticket back to Carlisle, valid on any train. No seat reservation.
I get to the station, intending to catch whatever happens to be the next train heading north. I check the live departures screen, find it should be an Avanti leaving almost immediately (for the sake of argument lets presume 20:00), but it's delayed by an hour. So instead I could catch a TPE expected on time and leaving at 20:05, but I don't - instead I wait for the delayed Avanti. Is that delay valid for repay? Or would the train company expect me to catch the first available train?

If you deliberately delay yourself further you're certainly not entitled to extra Delay Repay. Some would even argue that you aren't entitled to anything at all as you broke your journey, though personally I think if you only waited to avoid the serious overcrowding rather than for other reasons you inevitably get on the first train out after a long delay it's not unreasonable to claim for the delay based on the first train and actually take the second one. Delay repay forms don't ask you which train you took these days anyway so doing this is not being dishonest, they just work it out based on the quickest way they think you could have done it and pay that.

If your Advance was on that Avanti, unless acceptance was in place you would be entitled to wait for it and claim for the full delay, as your ticket would not be valid on the TPE (nor indeed any earlier Avanti unless they said so).

Taking that a step further, assuming the ticket I had was a credit card sized one without barcode so couldn't be scanned (and few guards now bother to clip or imprint), what is there to stop travel on the TPE and then claim for the delayed Avanti anyway?

Not very much, but if you did you'd be committing fraud.

I'm not suggesting anyone should do this, but it just strikes me that there's a black hole there

It's one reason the railway likes e-tickets.

 

[Haywain]

So instead I could catch a TPE expected on time and leaving at 20:05, but I don't - instead I wait for the delayed Avanti. Is that delay valid for repay? Or would the train company expect me to catch the first available train?

Of course they would expect you to catch the first available train - being delayed isn't meant to be optional.

 

[321362]

Claiming for something that didn't happen (as in, you were not delayed on the journey you made)? I think you've a very good idea how legal that is.

Well, I was delayed on the high speed, meaning that I missed my connection. I did get to my destination an hour late.

 

[Haywain]

meaning that I missed my connection. I did get to my destination an hour late.

Sorry, slight misreading of your post. So, you got to Ham Street an hour late. Presumably you were also an hour late at Eastbourne? So what was the gain in claiming for only part of your journey? And where the tickets are split doesn't make any difference to a DR claim.

 

[321362]

Sorry, slight misreading of your post. So, you got to Ham Street an hour late. Presumably you were also an hour late at Eastbourne? So what was the gain in claiming for only part of your journey? And where the tickets are split doesn't make any difference to a DR claim.

I was under the impression that split ticketing meant I couldn't claim for an Ashford-Eastbourne ticket if I was delayed on the previous leg (that's what Southern told me anyway) and that was a downside of split ticketing

 

[To the trains]

Even though you don't have the right to use a TPE service, ask anyway, you have nothing to lose, the worst that can happen is that they say no, the best is they let you take it and you arrive sooner. Conductors are very often reasonable and allow you to do things you don't have the right to do.

 

[Haywain]

I was under the impression that split ticketing meant I couldn't claim for an Ashford-Eastbourne ticket if I was delayed on the previous leg (that's what Southern told me anyway) and that was a downside of split ticketing

I think you might have misunderstood something. If you make a journey and you are delayed you can claim for that regardless of how many tickets you use to make that journey.

 

[styles]

Well, I was delayed on the high speed, meaning that I missed my connection. I did get to my destination an hour late.

Claiming for the actual delay to your journey is fine.

If your first leg was delayed by say an hour but you managed to get to your ultimate destination only say half an hour late, you have two options in practice:

1. Claim for the hour long delay to leg one. Let's say this is worth £30.
2. Claim for the half hour delay to the journey. Let's say this is worth £20.

Knowingly doing number 1 when you know that Delay Repay is meant to be based on the full journey would be section 2 fraud.

Number 2 is what you should do.

However, the word 'knowingly' is key. You can't be committed of fraud by false representation if you didn't intend to defraud. What this means in practice is the average traveller will 'get away with it' if they claimed for number 1, even if they bought the split tickets in the same transaction with an itinerary because they can just say oh I didn't realise it was the full journey not per ticket (a misconception a lot of passengers probably have). If on the other hand you frequent the fare advice section of a railway forum and your username is a unit of rolling stock number and you've been posting asking questions about which is valid, well you'll lose your credibility arguing you didn't intend to defraud The odds of it being prosecuted are incredibly slim of course.

There is also potentially some ambiguity at play. The NRCoT say that a journey may be comprised of multiple tickets. It doesn't actually say that multiple tickets in a single purchase must be considered a single journey. You could, for example, with split tickets end your journey at the station the tickets split at and that's perfectly valid. The question will ultimately be what did you do in reality. If leg 2 is a flexible ticket and you take a later train, then your case for claiming compensation for leg 1 becomes more plausible.

It's a question of 'having your cake and eating it' - if you regularly take advantage of split tickets and claim delays on the full journey cost, it seems a bit unfair to then decide to only claim compensation on individual tickets in a split ticket journey when it suits your wallet. Like I say though, odds of being caught and held to account are slim; at worst you're likely to just be asked to clarify well you bought these two tickets from a split ticket website as a single itinerary so did you make the full journey or not, and when you say you did use all the tickets, you'll be informed that you'll be getting the lesser compensation.

 

[OnTheBuffers]

The bolded bit is not relevant. You're still making one journey to Carlisle, using multiple tickets. You can claim for both.

Interesting - I clearly never tuned in to that bit.

 

[Howardh]

Digesting everything above, it's great that we have split ticketing, great that we have delay repay, but it seems difficult to marry the two on occasion!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 May 2026 ==

Even though you don't have the right to use a TPE service, ask anyway, you have nothing to lose, the worst that can happen is that they say no, the best is they let you take it and you arrive sooner. Conductors are very often reasonable and allow you to do things you don't have the right to do.

If the TPE were the last train to your destination (say the Avanti before was cancelled) then I would assume you could walk on the TPE with a ticket bought quickly on the app, so your journey is fully legal - then claim the ticket back off Avanti (which may be more than delay repay if you are unable to buy an advance).

I doubt Avanti would allow delay repay AND the refund of your TPE journey - which begs the question is it better to board the TPE ticketless, explain the situation, ask if ticket exceptance is in place, and if not simply buy one off the conductor and claim back?

 

[MrJeeves]

If the TPE were the last train to your destination (say the Avanti before was cancelled) then I would assume you could walk on the TPE with a ticket bought quickly on the app, so your journey is fully legal - then claim the ticket back off Avanti (which may be more than delay repay if you are unable to buy an advance).

In an ideal world, you'd simply be allowed to travel on your existing ticket due to...

28.2 Where disruption prevents you from completing the journey for which your Ticket is valid and is being used, any Train Company will, where it reasonably can, provide you with alternative means of travel to your destination, or if necessary, provide overnight accommodation for you.

...in the NRCoT, which should create an obligation on any train operator who can get you to your destination to help you do so.