Euro Anytime Return (CIV) London International

[MasterYoda]

Today I bought a Euro Anytime Return (CIV) ticket to London International. For Off-Peak use this works out £5 more expensive than the regular Off-Peak Day Return on my route.
I chose this particular ticket because I have a rather expensive SNCF ticket (+€150) at the other end for travel through two countries. My understanding is that with CIV on my local ticket, my eurostar ticket and my SNCF ticket, through protection is provided in case my local operator messes up and can't get me to my connection on time.

The sales rep for the local train operator tried hard to talk me out of the Euro Anytime Return ticket saying it was a waste of my money but it was up to me.

I know in theory I could rely on the goodwill of Eurostar, Railteam and SNCF who potentially could provide me a HOTNAT endorsement if there was a problem. (Although RENFE are not a member of railteam.) As I understand it, without a CIV ticket for the local part of the journey, if the local operator messed up, the other operators are under no obligation to do anything to help me. (Although I have never had a problem with Eurostar or SNCF in practice.)

Whats the right thing to do? Save my £5 and rely on the good will of the operators or get the full CIV protection?
Was the sales rep right to try and talk me out of the ticket?

TIA.

 

[gordonthemoron]

I'd go for full CIV protection

 

[Alfonso]

Today I bought a Euro Anytime Return (CIV) ticket to London International. For Off-Peak use this works out £5 more expensive than the regular Off-Peak Day Return on my route.
I chose this particular ticket because I have a rather expensive SNCF ticket (+€150) at the other end for travel through two countries. My understanding is that with CIV on my local ticket, my eurostar ticket and my SNCF ticket, through protection is provided in case my local operator messes up and can't get me to my connection on time.

The sales rep for the local train operator tried hard to talk me out of the Euro Anytime Return ticket saying it was a waste of my money but it was up to me.

I know in theory I could rely on the goodwill of Eurostar, Railteam and SNCF who potentially could provide me a HOTNAT endorsement if there was a problem. (Although RENFE are not a member of railteam.) As I understand it, without a CIV ticket for the local part of the journey, if the local operator messed up, the other operators are under no obligation to do anything to help me. (Although I have never had a problem with Eurostar or SNCF in practice.)

Whats the right thing to do? Save my £5 and rely on the good will of the operators or get the full CIV protection?
Was the sales rep right to try and talk me out of the ticket?

TIA.

I think you did the right thing, as HOTNAT does not extend to the domestic UK journey. I couldn't comment on whether the booking clerk did the right thing. I guess in part it depends on lots of other things: were you allowing loads of time between domestic and Eurostar journey so a delay unlikely to affect you? Did you whip out a platinum amex to pay for it, illustrating you have decent travel insurance? Is the service from you to London usually reliable or notorious for delays and cancellations?

 

[30907]

I assume from your reference to an Offpeak DAY Return that you are travelling one way?
On the outward journey, ES do not commit to letting you use a later train, so I would say the £5 is well spent if you only want to spend the minimum time at STD.
On the return UK TOCs will do so, so less of an issue (apart from avoiding all/most peak restrictions).

 

[johnnychips]

I was very glad of CIV protection when the last Eurostar from Brussels was delayed so we missed the last train to Doncaster. We stayed in a hotel in London, which was rapidly refunded, and Virgin as was endorsed our tickets at Kings X to travel the next day.

 

[OldandRambling]

Can anyone enlighten me as to what CIV is? I assume some sort of insurance? Never heard of it before, where do you buy it from?

 

[RT4038]

Can anyone enlighten me as to what CIV is? I assume some sort of insurance? Never heard of it before, where do you buy it from?

It is a European railway ticketing agreement for International through tickets, which, inter alia, ensures inter-acceptance and that passengers can continue their journey in the event of delays causing missed connections. However, it does not apply to split tickets, and railway undertakings are not obliged to offer through tickets.

 

[XAM2175]

The acronym is from Convention Internationale pour le transport des Voyageurs, or International Convention for the Transport of Passengers.

There's a decent explanation here: https://help.raileurope.co.uk/article/41665-understanding-civ

 

[Starmill]

CIV generally only provides clear cut entitlement over one missed connection anyway. So if you have a CIV ticket to London and a Eurostar ticket, Eurostar cannot refuse you on their next service with space if your train into London is late, provided you had all of the tickets before setting off and you made the first train as planned. But there's less clarity that any onward connections after the Eurostar train are protected the same way. Of course, the Railteam Promise helps here in a big way.

 

[AlbertBeale]

It is a European railway ticketing agreement for International through tickets, which, inter alia, ensures inter-acceptance and that passengers can continue their journey in the event of delays causing missed connections. However, it does not apply to split tickets, and railway undertakings are not obliged to offer through tickets.

In "olden days", when tickets from pretty much anywhere to pretty much anywhere in Europe were issued as one ticket (though sometimes with some separate coupons stapled into the overall ticket - such as separate tear-out vouchers for a ferry as part of the journey), then these through tickets (with "CIV" printed on the front) provided massive convenience and (if you had associated reservations on particular trains) security if there were delays en route. Though in fact, the delay / missed connection issue often wasn't a big deal anyway, financially: apart from things like sleepers and a few services requiring supplements, missing a connection would in any case only mean losing out on the completely nominal reservation fee. If you did miss a train, or change your mind, the ticket itself remained valid, you just needed to pay a tiny amount for a new reservation (assuming you wanted a reservation of course - they frequently weren't needed if you were prepared to take a chance on spending hours in the corridor!). But if you were travelling on a journey with specific reservations, and a delayed train made you miss a non-nominally-priced reservation on, eg, a sleeper, the the CIV would protect you. In any case, with all the railways publicly owned and (in general) mutually co-operative, I rarely came across rail personnel who weren't public-service-oriented and generally helpful, come what may.

Of course, a reversion to a co-operative rather than a competitive mentality on the part of rail services, including a willingness to supply through tickets, is somewhat of a dream at the moment; in fact with increasing fragmentation of services, involving more and more companies, and some international bodies like the EU being so addicted to privatisation and competition, I fear things might get worse before they get better...