Is the difference between Delay Repay and a Refund clear enough?

[Alex C.]

I saw a post on Twitter which had gone 'viral'

https://twitter.com/MisterRobster/status/1740667355959808489
Looking to refund my ticket because my train to Manchester is cancelled and this is what I get this country is so unserious I hate it

Which showed a trainline refund of a £3.90 on a £85.90 ticket.

Obviously everyone here would say that you need to go back to the trainline and explain the refund is due to disruption and you'll get a full fee free refund.

The vast majority of the replies suggest that the original poster is wrong though because they didn't claim delay repay - a selection of these:

If your train was cancelled and you chose not to travel you should be able to get it all back via delay repay from the train operator you were due to use

You don’t do it through trainline you claim delay repay through the train operator!!

delay repay! don’t do it through trainline

yeah trainline os not the way to do it, delay repay takes a little bit longer but youd get more back from it

Claim the refund through the train operator not Trainline

There are a few correct responses but the majority say to claim delay repay. It suggests that it is not clear who you should claim what from in the event of a cancellation.

Should Trainline, other retailers and TOCs be more proactive in driving passengers down the correct route to claim? It doesn't help that we're starting to see more investigations into delay repay and refund misuse which could have potential prosecution outcomes and it's clearly a popular view that delay repay and refunds are interchangeable, especially where the result (a full refund on the ticket) is the same either way.

 

[jamiearmley]

When I'm announcing delay repay eligibility on a service I'm working I now preface the announcement by explaining that one must not refund the ticket, one must claim delay repay - and mentioning that using the ticket and refunding it can be treated as an offence. I then go on to explain in brief detail how to claim correctly and the advantages in doing so.

It adds length to the announcement, but if it helps even one person avoid future issues it's worth it.

Incidentally, I've started doing this as a direct result of reading this forum..

 

[Northerngirl]

There REALLY needs to just be one Central system to organise refunds, even as someone who deals with it frequently, I'm still left wondering what and who I should claim from. If they just had one place to enter the ticket details & if you were late or didn't travel it would avoid alot of confusion.

 

[miklcct]

So what's the correct way to claim if the journey on one ticket is partially abandoned due to disruption? Does it matter if I eventually arrive the destination using alternative means of transport?

 

[Wallsendmag]

There REALLY needs to just be one Central system to organise refunds, even as someone who deals with it frequently, I'm still left wondering what and who I should claim from. If they just had one place to enter the ticket details & if you were late or didn't travel it would avoid alot of confusion.

Refunds are very simple they go back to the point of sale, Delay Repay is more complicated that’s the point of this thread.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Refunds are very simple they go back to the point of sale, Delay Repay is more complicated

This thread:

Delay Repay should be provided by retailers

The current system, whereby a refund request goes to the retailer but a delay repay request goes to the TOC who is deemed to have caused the delay, is not fit for purpose. Passengers get confused and not only that but TOCs themselves have been known, on numerous occasions, to erroneously palm...

www.railforums.co.uk

...discusses the issue and proposes, and I think concludes, that it should all go via the retailer with you just selecting from options depending on why you're refunding and completing relevant information.

 

[Wallsendmag]

This thread:

Delay Repay should be provided by retailers

The current system, whereby a refund request goes to the retailer but a delay repay request goes to the TOC who is deemed to have caused the delay, is not fit for purpose. Passengers get confused and not only that but TOCs themselves have been known, on numerous occasions, to erroneously palm...

www.railforums.co.uk

...discusses the issue and proposes, and I think concludes, that it should all go via the retailer with you just selecting from options depending on why you're refunding and completing relevant information.

Good luck getting TPRs onboard

 

[Bletchleyite]

Good luck getting TPRs onboard

I don't think they would get to refuse if RDG made it part of the accreditation requirements, would they?

Better continued in the above thread though, I'll duplicate this post over.

 

[james_the_xv]

This is a two part story really. Firstly, the Trainline's grip on UK ticketing. It's made more clear via the TOCs about delay repay, with some (such as Avanti) having automatic delay repay. The Trainline have no incentive to even mention delay repay as a possibility, as they can rake in the fees from refunds. The RDG really should be making it part of the requirements for 3rd party retails to ensure the refund flow has a suitble, clear message about delay repay. Secondly, 'Refund' is a more general term for getting money back, so customers assume that the compensation for delays is in refund form, when actually it's not.

 

[sor]

I saw that tweet too and was worried about the number of people who think "just use delay repay and bang in a max claim" is the way to go, even if they did not travel.

I don't use trainline of course - do they not have a tick box or some other way to easily say this is an abandoned journey? Feels like a major omission if they don't and expect customers to have to fight them for the refund to which they are entitled.

 

[WelshBluebird]

I saw that tweet too and was worried about the number of people who think "just use delay repay and bang in a max claim" is the way to go, even if they did not travel.

I don't use trainline of course - do they not have a tick box or some other way to easily say this is an abandoned journey? Feels like a major omission if they don't and expect customers to have to fight them for the refund to which they are entitled.

In my experience, usually as long as a train is marked as cancelled, and your itinerary included that train, then the system automatically does a fee free refund. The issue comes mainly with flexible tickets where someone intends to trav on a service different to their itinerary. I've also had an issue before where for some reason it wouldn't do fee free refund even though it should have - but that was easy sorted by contacting their customer services.

 

[Adam Williams]

Good luck getting TPRs onboard

TPRs are already on board, the IRR (consortium of Independent Rail Retailers) submitted a bunch of proposals related to Delay Repay reform to improve the passenger experience. Quite a lot of work went into these, considering GDPR and PCI implications (mainly around data protection regs and payment card details security) and suggesting an architecture that would have enabled a much improved system.

I seem to recall a public body were supposed to be arranging a workshop to talk about these proposals back in September, but it got cancelled and then was never rescheduled. Perhaps an indication of the current political climate.

 

[thejuggler]

This is a two part story really. Firstly, the Trainline's grip on UK ticketing. It's made more clear via the TOCs about delay repay, with some (such as Avanti) having automatic delay repay. The Trainline have no incentive to even mention delay repay as a possibility, as they can rake in the fees from refunds. The RDG really should be making it part of the requirements for 3rd party retails to ensure the refund flow has a suitble, clear message about delay repay. Secondly, 'Refund' is a more general term for getting money back, so customers assume that the compensation for delays is in refund form, when actually it's not.

Could Trainline give a 'refund' with admin fees and then claim delay repay themselves as the 'purchaser' of the original ticket?

 

[Watershed]

Could Trainline give a 'refund' with admin fees and then claim delay repay themselves as the 'purchaser' of the original ticket?

No.

Firstly, Delay Repay can't be claimed on refunded tickets. Any attempt at doing so could be taken as a attempt at fraud.

Secondly, it's the passenger rather than the purchaser of a ticket that is entitled to claim Delay Repay. Whilst most rail tickets aren't issued in anyone's name in the UK, companies can't claim Delay Repay; the passenger's name needs to be provided.

Finally, why on earth would any retailer do such a thing, which would get them in no end of trouble? It's a bit of a bizarre suggestion if I'm honest!

 

[robbeech]

Good luck getting TPRs onboard

I’d rather expect some of them would do a much better job than some operators seem to do with their abysmal games of rejection excuse bingo!
I don’t include the aforementioned Trainline in this however.

Finally, why on earth would any retailer do such a thing, which would get them in no end of trouble? It's a bit of a bizarre suggestion if I'm honest!

I was rather assuming they weren’t quite meaning it in such a fraudulent way. More so a dedicated procedure and system put in place where the retailer provides the money as a compensation value and legitimately reclaims from the operator, though it would require a lot of work for the reasons you point out.

 

[Robbouk]

Out of curiosity, what type of ticket is allowing a partial refund? If it's an Advance then there's no refund and if it's an open (such as off peak) then it's a full refund minus the admin fee as far as I know. There's been a few of these on Twitter recently and I'm sure one was an advance single.

 

[Alex C.]

Out of curiosity, what type of ticket is allowing a partial refund? If it's an Advance then there's no refund and if it's an open (such as off peak) then it's a full refund minus the admin fee as far as I know. There's been a few of these on Twitter recently and I'm sure one was an advance single.

I suspect it's 'splitsave' with an advance single and a flexible ticket for a small part of the journey.

 

[fandroid]

Out of curiosity, what type of ticket is allowing a partial refund? If it's an Advance then there's no refund and if it's an open (such as off peak) then it's a full refund minus the admin fee as far as I know. There's been a few of these on Twitter recently and I'm sure one was an advance single.

If the booked train is cancelled and the journey is abandoned then an Advance ticket can be fully refunded. Given the many "do not travel" announcements around the Christmas period, I would imagine a lot of Advance tickets being currently refunded.

 

[alistairlees]

Customer confusion between Delay Repay and Refunds is entirely of the TOCs' own making. It's made worse by some on train staff regularly telling people (at least on my routes) that, if the train is late, they can "claim a refund". It's made even further worse by pushing the burden of working out where to claim Delay Repay from onto the customer.

The whole thing would be vastly simpler from a customer point of view - and also less open to potentia fraud - by making it so that the customer goes back to the original retailer (TOC booking office / TOC website / independent retailer website) to claim any refund or compensation. Flows of money between retailers and carriers can continue to be sorted out behind the scenes, as they have been for many years, through established systems.

 

[northwichcat]

It seems this is down to people voicing their dissatisfaction with attempting to get full refunds following disruption.

A selection of the posts below. I wonder if it'll finally cause a trend of people avoiding using the trainline?

@adamcobb

Can’t believe we’re onto Day 8 of Trainline admin fee discourse.

@BladeoftheS

Trainline are charging an Admin fee on their Refunds. Surely that is illegal or it should be, a refund is 100% for a service not delivered, anything else is criminal. Anyway Boycott Trainline let the thieves go bankrupt.

@fr0ggys

trainline is genuinely disgusting this train was cancelled and you still wanna take £6 off me literally die

@MechaniVal

It absolutely is not stupid for someone who bought a ticket through Trainline to assume that Trainline's clear and obvious 'refund' option is the correct one to use in case of train cancellation, and not the esoteric 'go to the train operator's website and look for delay repay'.

@tiffusss
My experience today. They cancelled it with us on the train and now the ***** Trainline account is asking why my ticket was scanned if I want a refund

And probably not a constructive one from a local Green Party politican.

@CllrAlexCatt

I’ve seen everyone jumping on that one person telling them that they should get their refund from the rail company instead of Trainline…. But you all know that the rail company gives you compensation and that you can still get the refund from Trainline too right? Get both!

https://twitter.com/search?q=Trainline&src=trend_click&vertical=trends

I just noticed there's already a related thread here: https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...delay-repay-and-a-refund-clear-enough.260207/

 

[Haywain]

making it so that the customer goes back to the original retailer (TOC booking office / TOC website / independent retailer website) to claim any refund or compensation.

If this were to be the process, how would cases be dealt with where a customer has purchased split tickets from different retailers?

 

[OscarH]

If this were to be the process, how would cases be dealt with where a customer has purchased split tickets from different retailers?

The simple solution would be go to each retailer with evidence of the other tickets and each one will pay the compensation for their ticket. It's a faff for the passenger but it affects such a small portion of people who have already decided its worth inconveniencing themselves to do this I don't really see a problem - case of such a vast improvement for the 99% it's worth the hassle for the 1%.

Note I haven't seen the proposals, maybe this has been addressed in a better way, the above is what I'd see as a "worst case"

 

[robbeech]

Customer confusion between Delay Repay and Refunds is entirely of the TOCs' own making. It's made worse by some on train staff regularly telling people (at least on my routes) that, if the train is late, they can "claim a refund". It's made even further worse by pushing the burden of working out where to claim Delay Repay from onto the customer.

Operators often haven’t got a clue I’m afraid. I see lots of social media posts telling passengers to claim delay repay when they haven’t travelled. EMR used to be quite bad for this. Of course, if it didn’t actually qualify it would have been rejected. Regardless of what happens in ANY of these situations it’s always the passenger that is let down by the railway initially, and then let down again when their attempts to follow advice fail.

Let us not forget the fact that those who have done it wrong in good faith, perhaps following direct advice from an operator and/or retailer might be let down again when they’re accused of fraud in 12 months.

 

[Gwr12345]

@CllrAlexCatt

I’ve seen everyone jumping on that one person telling them that they should get their refund from the rail company instead of Trainline…. But you all know that the rail company gives you compensation and that you can still get the refund from Trainline too right? Get both!

I've noticed this post has now been deleted, realised it was illegal perhaps?

 

[Jim the Jim]

This seems to be related to the rise of etickets. For one thing, these make refunds rather easier to claim, so people are more likely to get it wrong. For another, I wonder if people are now more easily misled into thinking the ticket is only valid for the service on the itinerary and that if that service is cancelled they should claim a refund a book a new ticket on another train.

 

[fandroid]

Perhaps tickets bought online should be issued with a complete set of passenger's rights spelt out for dealing with all potential circumstances that could arise in the likely event of a disruption. TOC specific too, tailored to their itinerary. Not just a tick box for having (not) read NRCoT

 

[Wallsendmag]

Perhaps tickets bought online should be issued with a complete set of passenger's rights spelt out for dealing with all potential circumstances that could arise in the likely event of a disruption. TOC specific too, tailored to their itinerary. Not just a tick box for having (not) read NRCoT

How many times can you lead a horse to water?

 

[MotCO]

Isn't the easiest way to be for each TOC and ticket retailer to have a single web page for ticket refunds / delay repay, and on the front page go through a menu list:
e.g. Why do you want a refund? Options - My train was cancelled, my train was late, I decided not to travel etc etc. Depending on the option selected, the webpage either directs you to the retailer for a refund or TOC or a delay repay.

 

[island]

Perhaps tickets bought online should be issued with a complete set of passenger's rights spelt out for dealing with all potential circumstances that could arise in the likely event of a disruption. TOC specific too, tailored to their itinerary. Not just a tick box for having (not) read NRCoT

Do you also want to give passengers a multiple choice test to verify that they’ve read and understood them before allowing them to buy a ticket?

 

[fandroid]

Do you also want to give passengers a multiple choice test to verify that they’ve read and understood them before allowing them to buy a ticket?

No, but staff might benefit from such a test