Staff Brief on Strike Day Ticket Arrangments

[XAM2175]

You would also have the right to have it validated for a wider range of alternative days, under Article 16(c) of the PRO. And although I imagine most people will either want to get a refund, or travel within that window, the industry shouldn't be implying that that remedy is exclusive.

Credit to Avanti on this point - they allowing passengers with tickets for 21st to 26th to be used at any time between the announcement of the strike and the 27th without needing to be amended.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Credit to Avanti on this point - they allowing passengers with tickets for 21st to 26th to be used at any time between the announcement of the strike and the 27th without needing to be amended.

All very well that Avanti do, but if connecting TOCs don't this is a bit useless. There should really have been a standard (and generous) RDG policy on this with TOCs asked not to differ.

 

[Wallsendmag]

The LNER website is set up to take account of Book with Confidence for refund requests. And I believe the process for requesting a refund is fairly straightforward.

I believe it’s been tweaked for the strikes as well

 

[Starmill]

All very well that Avanti do, but if connecting TOCs don't this is a bit useless. There should really have been a standard (and generous) RDG policy on this with TOCs asked not to differ.

Some have advised customers not to travel, including on the non-strike dates.

Advice not to travel obviously triggers a refund right, even if your booked services are all running normally...

It's not certain whether this is feeding through.

 

[Andyh82]

Does Delay Repay still apply on strike days?

I’m thinking anyone who does travel could realistically apply for delay repay by claiming they were planning on travelling on an earlier service that doesn’t exist in the strike timetable?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Does Delay Repay still apply on strike days?

It does, but against the strike timetable, not the normal one.

I’m thinking anyone who does travel could realistically apply for delay repay by claiming they were planning on travelling on an earlier service that doesn’t exist in the strike timetable?

No.

 

[hkstudent]

Does Delay Repay still apply on strike days?

I’m thinking anyone who does travel could realistically apply for delay repay by claiming they were planning on travelling on an earlier service that doesn’t exist in the strike timetable?

The NRCOT has already been updated, to base on the schedule published by 10pm the day before travel. So, unlikely to claim by prior to strike timetable

 

[westv]

The LNER website is set up to take account of Book with Confidence for refund requests. And I believe the process for requesting a refund is fairly straightforward.

An AP refund under "book with confidence" is normally an e-voucher not a cash refund.

 

[northwichcat]

All very well that Avanti do, but if connecting TOCs don't this is a bit useless. There should really have been a standard (and generous) RDG policy on this with TOCs asked not to differ.

That could have made last Friday interesting, with the Avanti services out of Euston suspended. Normally if you have a Route: Any Permitted ticket for London to Manchester you can travel via Reading or Sheffield without needing to wait for ticket acceptance arrangements to be confirmed. But if you had a ticket dated for a strike day and arrangements are different for different operators...

 

[Bletchleyite]

That could have made last Friday interesting, with the Avanti services out of Euston suspended. Normally if you have a Route: Any Permitted ticket for London to Manchester you can travel via Reading or Sheffield without needing to wait for ticket acceptance arrangements to be confirmed. But if you had a ticket dated for a strike day and arrangements are different for different operators...

There is and can be no change to Any Permitted route validity, though I don't doubt some staff will claim there is.

However the date thing is an issue.

 

[Haywain]

However the date thing is an issue.

In what way? The ‘1 day before, 2 days after’ is across the industry.

 

[northwichcat]

In what way? The ‘1 day before, 2 days after’ is across the industry.

If you had an Off Peak single for London to Manchester Route: Any Permitted dated for a strike day this coming week, the more generous Avanti relaxation allowed you to use it last Friday. But last Friday there was severe disruption at Euston, with the service suspended for a few hours. Normally you wouldn't need any ticket restriction relaxation to use an Off Peak single on other routes out of London but you couldn't presume XC, GWR, EMR etc. would relax the date restriction due to the Avanti disruption, unless they specifically stated that they were accepting Avanti tickets. Even then I would expect some staff to question the wrong date on the ticket.

 

[Bletchleyite]

In what way? The ‘1 day before, 2 days after’ is across the industry.

As stated above Avanti are unilaterally being more generous. This is in some ways good, but is going to cause problems.

"1 day before, 2 days after" is pretty useless for most people. People plan to do things on specific days, often it's the case that if I can't do it this weekend I'm going to do it in a month instead, not do it on Friday/Monday instead due to that minor thing called "work". It's a bit like "you can travel at the same time the day after" - again, useless, if I was travelling the evening before, only the morning after on a very early Anytime-only train is likely to be useful.

Literally no proper thought nor respect whatsoever goes into the actual use cases in these situations. Something like a voucher for a return journey on the route booked valid for 12 months would be an appropriate response, if a refund was not desired.

 

[Starmill]

In what way? The ‘1 day before, 2 days after’ is across the industry.

As has been pointed out, this period is rather too restrictive as some operators have urged customers not to travel for a six day period. So if a customer had a ticket for the second or third of the six days of disruption it's not actually possible for them to travel on a day when they aren't being strongly advised not to travel.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Jun 2022 ==

Literally no proper thought nor respect whatsoever goes into the actual use cases in these situations. Something like a voucher for a return journey on the route booked valid for 12 months would be an appropriate response, if a refund was not desired.

Yes, issuing a free ticket would be far more appropriate. Even if it were set to expire six months from the date of the original journey.

 

[js517]

As has been pointed out, this period is rather too restrictive as some operators have urged customers not to travel for a six day period. So if a customer had a ticket for the second or third of the six days of disruption it's not actually possible for them to travel on a day when they aren't being strongly advised not to travel.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Jun 2022 ==


Yes, issuing a free ticket would be far more appropriate. Even if it were set to expire six months from the date of the original journey.

The latest policy is apparently:

"If you have a ticket for travel on 21st, 23rd or 25th of June you can use this ticket either on the day before the date on the ticket or through and including the Monday and Tuesday of the following week."

 

[trainophile]

Trainsplit emailed me today advising that one of my booked WMR trains on Friday 24th is not running, and saying I can claim a full refund if I choose not to travel, for which they included a link to their refund form. Suits me fine as I have already made other arrangements and bought a new ticket on a different route to travel on 27th instead.

However, the refund form includes a field for the booking reference of the "replacement ticket", which I don't have as I'm not re-booking that route. It would not let me submit my claim without filling in that box, so eventually I put AAAAAAAA and it went through! I also tweeted and emailed Trainsplit asking about this situation and saying they should disable that box if the claimant selects "industrial action" as their reason for claiming.

Will await a response. Trainsplit are usually pretty good but the whole thing is such a mess currently.

 

[js517]

Trainsplit emailed me today advising that one of my booked WMR trains on Friday 24th is not running, and saying I can claim a full refund if I choose not to travel, for which they included a link to their refund form. Suits me fine as I have already made other arrangements and bought a new ticket on a different route to travel on 27th instead.

However, the refund form includes a field for the booking reference of the "replacement ticket", which I don't have as I'm not re-booking that route. It would not let me submit my claim without filling in that box, so eventually I put AAAAAAAA and it went through! I also tweeted and emailed Trainsplit asking about this situation and saying they should disable that box if the claimant selects "industrial action" as their reason for claiming.

Will await a response. Trainsplit are usually pretty good but the whole thing is such a mess currently.

You need to select the option on the refund form that says:

"I was affected by disruption"

If you do that, it shouldn't ask you for a replacement booking.

 

[Haywain]

However, the refund form includes a field for the booking reference of the "replacement ticket", which I don't have as I'm not re-booking that route. It would not let me submit my claim without filling in that box, so eventually I put AAAAAAAA and it went through! I also tweeted and emailed Trainsplit asking about this situation and saying they should disable that box if the claimant selects "industrial action" as their reason for claiming.

Maybe something for @Adam Williams to look at.

 

[mrmartin]

What about anytime/off peak restrictions? Are they going to be waived if the strike timetable means you have to get an often (much) earlier train to get to the destination at the same time as the pre strike timetable?

 

[Watershed]

What about anytime/off peak restrictions? Are they going to be waived if the strike timetable means you have to get an often (much) earlier train to get to the destination at the same time as the pre strike timetable?

There isn't anything explicit about this in the brief. Broadly speaking I would have expected staff to be lenient on ticketing (where barriers are even manned etc.) anyway over the coming week.

That said, I don't doubt there will be some who wrongly suggest that normal time restrictions still apply, and make people pay excesses etc. even if they booked before the strikes were announced or timetables released.

 

[Starmill]

It's also not actually made explicit that you may use the routes that are available in order to make an otherwise impossible journey either. For example if you have a ticket valid for a Northern service from Manchester to Wigan can you use TransPennine Express and change at Preston to reach Wigan? There's no alternative except for changing at Crewe.

The Northern website does list TransPennine Express as accepting Northern tickets on strike days so it's heavily implies this would be covered for example, but it's not certain.

Perhaps in reality there would be no ticket inspection so nobody would even know.

 

[Watershed]

It's also not actually made explicit that you may use the routes that are available in order to make an otherwise impossible journey either. For example if you have a ticket valid for a Northern service from Manchester to Wigan can you use TransPennine Express and change at Preston to reach Wigan? There's no alternative except for changing at Crewe.

The Northern website does list TransPennine Express as accepting Northern tickets on strike days so it's heavily implies this would be covered for example, but it's not certain.

Perhaps in reality there would be no ticket inspection so nobody would even know.

Or Wilmslow to anywhere south of Alderley Edge, which is only possible by doubling back and changing at Manchester Piccadilly.

 

[Adam Williams]

Maybe something for @Adam Williams to look at.

@js517 hits the nail on the head: the existing implementation expects users to go through the disruption flow, because it is ultimately a disruption-related refund at the end of the day. If they do that, and self-certify that they're choosing not to travel due to announced disruption, we offer the fee-free refund automatically.

It's clear that not enough customers have made this connection though and I'm happy to put my hands up and acknowledge that "disruption" is more of an industry term (and the explanatory text we have is likely not prominent enough), so from this morning we have new options to hopefully make it more obvious:





If you're affected by strike action & pick these options, you should be offered a fee-free refund ("Refund without replacement" in the UI), no questions asked.

 

[Haywain]

@js517 hits the nail on the head: the existing implementation expects users to go through the disruption flow, because it is ultimately a disruption-related refund at the end of the day. If they do that, and self-certify that they're choosing not to travel due to announced disruption, we offer the fee-free refund automatically.

It's clear that not enough customers have made this connection though and I'm happy to put my hands up and acknowledge that "disruption" is more of an industry term (and the explanatory text we have is likely not prominent enough), so from this morning we have new options to hopefully make it more obvious:

View attachment 116480

View attachment 116481

If you're affected by strike action & pick these options, you should be offered a fee-free refund ("Refund without replacement" in the UI), no questions asked.

Good work. Your ability to implement a change like this so quickly is very impressive.

 

[trainophile]

I can't remember what I actually selected, but pretty sure it was "I was made aware of disruption before my journey and chose not to travel". Anyway they answered me on Twitter this morning (was that you Adam, you seem to do everything? ), asked me for my original booking ref. which I gave, and confirmed it was all okay.

Edit: No sooner had I posted that than I received an email saying my ticket is being refunded! Well done Trainsplit, that's what I call excellent service.

 

[Haywain]

As stated above Avanti are unilaterally being more generous.

As has been pointed out, this period is rather too restrictive as some operators have urged customers not to travel for a six day period. So if a customer had a ticket for the second or third of the six days of disruption it's not actually possible for them to travel on a day when they aren't being strongly advised not to travel.

This flexibility of travel date has now been changed and travel can be between 20-28 June inclusive.

 

[Starmill]

This flexibility of travel date has now been changed and travel can be between 20-28 June inclusive.

Ah right, I hadn't seen. That's useful then thanks.

 

[Haywain]

Ah right, I hadn't seen. That's useful then thanks.

I only found out in the last hour! There appear to be some other tweaks as well, but I haven't followed the various briefs closely enough to identify every change.

 

[CHESHIRECAT]

So i've got return ½ of off peak Stockport Euston bought 15 June on basis trains running to Manchester 21 June
(which they are but not stopping Stockport)

Delay repay applicable?

 

[Bletchleyite]

So i've got return ½ of off peak Stockport Euston bought 15 June on basis trains running to Manchester 21 June
(which they are but not stopping Stockport)

Delay repay applicable?

No. I would just ask Avanti if you can travel from Manchester instead.