Abandoned Journey Fee Free Refunds

[An_Engineer]

I regularly commute up from London to Meldreth, using Thameslink, so as expected I've become quite familiar with the delay repay process. However, of slightly more difficulty is getting a fee free refund for a journey where delays/cancellations make it not worth the trip to the office and I have to abandon my journey. Yesterday (13th Mar) my morning train (the 07:52 from Kings Cross) got turned back in-between Potter's Bar and Hatfield. It then proceeded back north (an hour late by this point), but at Welwyn Garden City it was announced that after Stevenage it would be going non-stop to Cambridge. Seeing as the next train to Meldreth was also indefinitely delayed, I decided retreat was the better part of valour and got a train back to London so I could at least get some work done from home that day.

So all well and good I'll just claim it back from Trainline, my ticket vendor (e-ticket). However I actually don't see how. Their app and online FAQ says to get a refund by just going to "Manage your journey", but the only option it allows there is a refund with a £10 fee. There is no number I can find on their website, and there FAQ says I'm eligible for a fee free refund but does not actually tell me how to go about getting it. I am really struggling to find a way of getting this refund without paying the refund fee.

And just to add, I've used other online ticket vendors before and run into similar issues. Their online forms neglect to consider you might want a refund because the trains weren't actually running, and you have to dig around to find any sort of phone number that maybe with a bit of luck will get you through to someone who can process it without the refund fee

Surely it is not supposed to be this difficult?

 

[Benjwri]

You should be able to contact their online support using this link, who should give you a fee free refund. You might have to fudge a few answers on the form so you don’t get the default ‘use the manage booking page’ response.

Personally I think Trainline are terrible, and they have some interesting business practices. I would recommend tickets.railforums.co.uk, which is run by TrainSplit. Their Customer Service is always very helpful, and their refund form most definitely has the option to say your journey was disrupted.

 

[WesternLancer]

You should be able to contact their online support using this link, who should give you a fee free refund. You might have to fudge a few answers on the form so you don’t get the default ‘use the manage booking page’ response.

Personally I think Trainline are terrible, and they have some interesting business practices. I would recommend tickets.railforums.co.uk, which is run by TrainSplit. Their Customer Service is always very helpful, and their refund form most definitely has the option to say your journey was disrupted.

Of course this is good advice - but also occurs to me to wonder if it is any better to buy the tickets off Thameslink direct? I assume the OP has perhaps already tried this option.

Given abandoning journey due to delayed or disrupted services is a completely reasonable thing to do - and is a clear entitlement, it needs to be easier to do when legitimately required.

 

[zero]

I've had to do this twice with EMR, one time the ticket office staff was competent but it still took ages and made me fill in a long form they printed out. They said they could only do it for tickets bought at that office or a machine at that particular station.

The second time the ticket office staff member tried their best but couldn't find how to do it, so they told me to claim the refund via the Delay Repay system. They let me make a note of their first name. So I wrote a note next to the ticket scan saying that I wasn't delayed but abandoned my journey, and was advised to claim in this manner by staff member X.

The system automatically paid me "delay repay", but it wasn't the full amount of the ticket cost, so I appealed. The assessor wrote back saying they accepted my refund request and sent the remaining amount.

 

[AlterEgo]

Trainsplit is by far the easiest for this sort of request and has one of the best refund tools in the market.

 

[Haywain]

They said they could only do it for tickets bought at that office or a machine at that particular station.

That's fairly normal - for refunds tickets have to go back to the same retailer, although some can deal with tickets bought at any of their stations.

 

[ainsworth74]

Trainsplit is by far the easiest for this sort of request and has one of the best refund tools in the market.

Agreed, I've never had an issue getting a fee free refund through Trainsplit and the process has been remarkably painless.

Plug alert: You can also support the Forum by buying your tickets through our white label of Trainsplit but still benefit from the excellent refund tool.

 

[W-on-Sea]

Trainsplit are of course great, but I've never had any problems getting refunds from GWR too.

 

[An_Engineer]

Managed it eventually thanks to the link from above, though it still required navigating through to get to the online chat and then 10minutes chatting with an customer support agent to get it sorted. The instructions on the main trainline website definitely do not point to this route (or even suggest that this method exists). So poor performance from trainline overall.

While I have considered booking directly through Thameslink its mobile app is very poor and I've had issues with it not displaying my purchased tickets, whereas Trainline does have a fairly good interface. For reference, Greater Anglia also don't have the best refund method; with them you also have to find a customer support number and give them a ring (in fact I think they may share same backend as trainline).

 

[fandroid]

Managed it eventually thanks to the link from above, though it still required navigating through to get to the online chat and then 10minutes chatting with an customer support agent to get it sorted. The instructions on the main trainline website definitely do not point to this route (or even suggest that this method exists). So poor performance from trainline overall.

While I have considered booking directly through Thameslink its mobile app is very poor and I've had issues with it not displaying my purchased tickets, whereas Trainline does have a fairly good interface. For reference, Greater Anglia also don't have the best refund method; with them you also have to find a customer support number and give them a ring (in fact I think they may share same backend as trainline).

The Forum site (aka Trainsplit) allows you to display the ticket in the Google Wallet (and the iPhone equivalent) and I've never had any problems with this. I don't think they have an app, but I just display the link to their website on my homescreen and that is designed to work perfectly well from a phone.

 

[Haywain]

I don't think they have an app,

There is definitely a Trainsplit app, I have it on my phone. One day I might even buy a ticket with it!

 

[ainsworth74]

There is definitely a Trainsplit app, I have it on my phone. One day I might even buy a ticket with it!

There is but you can't support the Forum through it so it's obviously a much worse option

 

[Benjwri]

There is but you can't support the Forum through it so it's obviously a much worse option

Although if you buy a ticket through the forum site, you can log into the app and add the ticket to your phone that way!