XC Delay Repay

[melon68]

XC were awful again on Saturday. I had purchased a split save ticket from Birmingham International to Nottingham on the Trainline and this tied me to an Avanti connecting service to New street then the 15:09 which was cancelled by XC. I claimed a refund for the Avanti leg through the Trainline, as it seemed easiest to rebook onto a more expensive flexible single (another £30) rather than be tied to using a specific connecting service/operator.
In the end I have tried to claim a refund for the cancelled leg through the Trainline which has diverted me to XC Delay Repay. Trainline states that you should try and use an alternative service from the same operator in case of cancellation, but the first train to Derby was a 4 coach Voyager running 25 minutes late due to overcrowding (4 cars again)! I ended up going via Leicester.
The XC website will not accept an upload of my scanned PDF with its QR code. Is there any other way (e.g. email) of contacting XC to see if they will refund my fare? Otherwise I'm out of pocket! Thanks

 

[Watershed]

We will need a bit more detail to help you effectively.

Which station were your SplitSave tickets split at, and what ticket did you hold on either side of the split (ticket type e.g. Advance/Off-Peak, and cost)? And what additional ticket did you buy (from where to where, and cost)?

What were the times of your scheduled itinerary and what time trains did you actually end up catching?

 

[melon68]

Thanks Watershed.
My scheduled itinerary was as follows:

1. International to New Street: Dep 14:47: Avanti Anytime Day Single £4.80: I have claimed a refund from the Trainline for this service. So split at New Street

2. New Street to Nottingham: Dep 15:09: XC Advance Single. £13.60
**Cancelled service**

My actual journey was:

1. International to New Street: Dep 14:35: LNW? service: Anytime Day Single (any operator) £5, again split at New Street
2. New Street to Leicester: Dep 15:23: XC service
3. Leicester to Nottingham: EMR service (I can't recall the departure time). Legs 2 and 3 were both made with an Off Peak Day Single (any route/operator Birmingham stations to Nottingham) £25.60

Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic about getting a refund of all or part of the £13.60 for the cancelled XC leg of my journey but I think it is worth the effort?

 

[Belperpete]

You are entitled to a full refund if a train is cancelled. You claim the refund from the company that sold you the ticket, not from the train company. Don't get this confused with delay repay, which is compensation for arriving late, and which is paid by the train company that delayed you (eg by cancelling their train).

Claiming a refund of the fare for just the Avanti leg could be problematic, as that train wasn't cancelled. Which is why I think Trainline have directed you to XC delay repay.

If I understand correctly, you ended up buying new tickets for all the legs of your journey, and didn't use any of the original Trainline supplied tickets? In which case, you should be claiming for a full refund from Trainline (not XC or Avanti) for the full journey.

Trainline are correct that you are entitled to travel on two trains either side. However, in cases where a train is cancelled and you don't use the tickets, you are entitled to a full refund of those tickets with no fee deducted.

 

[melon68]

Thanks Pete, in the end the Trainline only refunded the first (Avanti) ticket which wasn't much. I didn't read your post until earlier this week, so I found my way onto XC's Delay Repay portal (my eventual arrival at Nottingham was more than 30 minutes late so it was legitimate). I was surprised that XC agreed to refund my ticket price in full. I used my second ticket to travel which was only scanned by the barriers in both Birmingham stations but not on the trains. Perhaps I could have used the original ticket but it was restricted to Avanti to New Street so my choice of trains was limited. I'm only a couple of quid down in the end.