Train “cancelled”

[kingston]

Merry Christmas RF

I bought a return Super Off Peak return ticket online with seat reservations on 22 Dec for travel out 24 Dec and returning today on 27 Dec on a 9am train. As this was just before the Christmas break I thought the timetable as finalised.

When I checked today that train has disappeared from the schedule entirely? I appreciate engineering work can run late and trains can be cancelled on the day but this seems odd?

Naturally no email received to notify whenever this change was made.

The next train (the first of the day) arrives 58 minutes later (just below a sensible compensation level), plus I’d rather not travel than stand for a few hours on a crazy busy train.

What refund would I get if I refunded the ticket, just the difference between a SOR and SOS (not a lot?)

Equally if I had to stand for the journey despite having reservations would I at least get a refund?

Thanks in advance

 

[Watershed]

Merry Christmas RF

I bought a return Super Off Peak return ticket online with seat reservations on 22 Dec for travel out 24 Dec and returning today on 27 Dec on a 9am train. As this was just before the Christmas break I thought the timetable as finalised.

When I checked today that train has disappeared from the schedule entirely? I appreciate engineering work can run late and trains can be cancelled on the day but this seems odd?

Naturally no email received to notify whenever this change was made.

The next train (the first of the day) arrives 58 minutes later (just below a sensible compensation level), plus I’d rather not travel than stand for a few hours on a crazy busy train.

What refund would I get if I refunded the ticket, just the difference between a SOR and SOS (not a lot?)

You should be entitled to a 50% refund, as this is a refund due to disruption rather than a change-of-mind refund. However, you may wish to have the retailer confirm that this is what they will pay, before you put in your refund application.

Equally if I had to stand for the journey despite having reservations would I at least get a refund

Unfortunately, unless you are travelling on a TOC that guarantees a particular level of compensation for being unable to sit down with a reservation (e.g. LNER with their Seat Guarantee), there is nothing that formally says what you are entitled to. Arguably it would be a breach of the obligation to provide the service with reasonable care and skill, and so a 'price reduction' would be appropriate. What would be a reasonable level of reduction could be a matter of debate.

 

[yorkie]

Merry Christmas RF

I bought a return Super Off Peak return ticket online with seat reservations on 22 Dec for travel out 24 Dec and returning today on 27 Dec on a 9am train. As this was just before the Christmas break I thought the timetable as finalised.

When I checked today that train has disappeared from the schedule entirely? I appreciate engineering work can run late and trains can be cancelled on the day but this seems odd?

Naturally no email received to notify whenever this change was made.

The next train (the first of the day) arrives 58 minutes later (just below a sensible compensation level), plus I’d rather not travel than stand for a few hours on a crazy busy train.

What refund would I get if I refunded the ticket, just the difference between a SOR and SOS (not a lot?)

Equally if I had to stand for the journey despite having reservations would I at least get a refund?

Thanks in advance

What journey are you making today and who did you book it through?

You should get a 50% refund if you choose not to travel.

 

[BRX]

I had a similar experience travelling yesterday: a journey booked before Christmas via LNER the first leg of which was Scotrail.

I discovered yesterday morning that the first, Scotrail, leg had been cut short meaning an extra change in order to get to Edinburgh, where we were due to make the connection with the LNER service. Under the original itinerary, (which was still shown in the LNER app and marked as running "on time"!) we had half an hour to change in Edinburgh, but the new one left us just one minute to change, meaning we would instead have to take the next LNER train. We had reservations on our booked LNER service but not the next one, and there were warnings everywhere that it was likely to be very busy, even the implication that reservations were mandatory to travel.

It all worked out ok in the end, but I wasn't very impressed by
(a) LNER seemingly being unaware of the change to the Scotrail timetable, therefore not giving us any warning (I only discovered when I looked on RTT early in the morning to see whether we had an HST allocated!)
(b) Scotrail not seeming to acknowledge that they had changed something since many people were likely to have booked. No announcement was made on the train for example. Several passengers seemed quite anxious about how they were going to get to Edinburgh and whether they would miss connections.