Southern Delay Repay - advice please

[Joey Beauchamp]

We've had two recent delay repay claims incorrectly (in my opinion) rejected by Southern and was wondering if someone could tell me what I need to change to get compensated or how to escalate the matter.

Journey 1: My wife and I had off peak period returns from Long Buckby to Pevensey Bay. Mine used an Annual Gold Card, hers had no railcard discount. We travelled separately on the outward journey without delay. On the return, there were rail replacement buses from Eastbourne to Brighton and Pevensey Bay station had no services, so we planned to travel Normans Bay - St Leonards Warrior Square - Charing Cross - Euston - MK then a rail replacement bus to Northampton and another rail replacement bus to Long Buckby.

When we got to Normans Bay there was a medical emergency and we departed 36 minutes late. Then the train was terminated at Bexhill. We ended up going Ashford International - St Pancras - Euston - Rugby then rail replacement to Long Buckby.

I claimed for 1hr-1hr59mins on my ticket and it was accepted. My wife did the same and it was rejected because "The ticket provided is not valid for the journey you've claimed for." I believe this is because she couldn't put the final leg in because buses don't show up on the system, so it looked like she ended her journey at Rugby? Or possibly the ticket wasn't valid via Rugby disruption or not?

Journey 2: Even more simple and I have no explanation for this claim being rejected! Sunday 18th I travelled from Pevensey & Westham to Long Buckby via London. 12.44 and 13.44 were cancelled completely so I claimed for a 2 hour+ delay. Again, "The ticket provided is not valid for the journey you've claimed for." To be clear, this was another return portion of a Long Buckby to Pevensey Bay, I wasn't using the same ticket twice or anything silly like that.

Any ideas? I will get my wife to put the top one in again as via Northampton, but I can't change anything on the bottom one!

 

[m00036]

For journey 1, it might be because your wife put in the journey you ended up taking as opposed to the planned journey? While you can (with permission / ticket acceptance etc.) change route during disruption, if it is not a valid route in itself, then the automated system would say you were trying to take an invalid route and reject delay repay on that basis.

I have no answers for journey 2 I'm afraid, I know it can be quite easy to make a typo with these requests so all I can suggest is to double check it (making sure the ticket details are the right way round and that the ticket was valid for a period return, not just a day return etc.) and then appeal saying that the ticket details are correct, the route is valid and that you broke your journey at the end to finish at Pevensey Bay and not Pevensey & Westham. That said, I gave the same advice to my sister and, as part of the double check, it transpired she'd bought the ticket for the wrong day! I'm not saying you would, but obviously an appeal in that case could lead to revenue protection type questions as you accidentally bought a ticket that was, indeed, not valid.

 

[Iggy12a]

You will need to be persistent; in July I was having days out along the south coast using a weekly Southampton to Ashford Int via Barnham.

One morning I intended to travel Chichester - Brighton - Hampden Park - Rye. The train from Brighton was cancelled meaning I arrived over an hour late at Rye (due to late running of the subsequent Hampden Park - Rye service); my first Delay Repay was rejected because the system could not find the journey I intended to make.

I resubmitted the Delay Repay providing exactly the same journey times because it lets you choose from itineraries recently submitted. It was rejected this time because my ticket was not valid for the journey I was claiming.

I then submitted a complaint to Customer Services using the Contact Us option. I received a response saying that my claims had been rejected correctly, so essentially for both reasons: that the journey could not be found and the ticket was not valid for the intended journey, and in particular my ticket was not valid at Rye.

I submitted a response detailing in full the trains I had intended to travel on, pasting in details from Recenttraintimes and a screenshot from the National Rail app of the same itinerary but in the future. I also asked them to explain why my season ticket from Southampton to Ashford was not valid at Rye.

Finally I received an acknowledgement that I was correct and offering me compensation for a 65 minute delay. They thanked me for my patience, but no apology for all their errors.