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Train refund

I'm not a regular user of public transport so please excuse my ingnorance on this matter.

I booked a return train ticket between Manchester and Carlisle last week via Trainline.com - the return date of travel was yesterday (Bank Holiday Monday). It would not let me book a seat on the Carlisle to Preston part of the journey (Virgin) due to no seats being available, but did give me a seat on the Preston to Manchester element.

Anyway boarded the train at Carlisle at 12:49 and it was chaos already - no seats, standing room only and very little of that. At later stops they refused entry to people standing on the platform and what should have been a 70 min journey turned into a 146 minute journey due to issues on the line. We sat at Oxenholme for a considerable amount of time and crawled our way to Lancaster. Apparently works on the line over the Bank Holiday has over-run and ours was the first train to pass them.

Obviously I missed my connection at Preston although that was no great hardship, but the conditions on the Virgin Train were not great and the delay more than doubled the travel time.

Am I entitled to any refund on my ticket?

Many thanks.

Comments

  • Voyager2002
    Voyager2002 Posts: 15,681 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    You are entitled to compensation rather than a refund. Since you reached your final destination more than an hour later than expected, your compensation should be equal to what you paid for the journey from Carlisle to Manchester. In addition, compensation is available for passengers who were unable to sit in a reserved seat: if you mention in your letter to Virgin that you had to stand between Preston and Manchester despite the fact that you had reserved a seat for this sector, because your incoming service was delayed, they should respond appropriately. Obviously there is no compensation for saying that conditions were "not great".
  • p00hsticks
    p00hsticks Posts: 13,618 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    JQ. wrote: »
    Am I entitled to any refund on my ticket?

    Not a refund per se, but compensation in the form of National Rail vouchers.

    See section 5.2 of the Virgin passengers charter here for details and how to claim

    http://www.virgintrains.co.uk/assets/pdf/global/passengers-charter.pdf
  • geordie_taxi
    geordie_taxi Posts: 434 Forumite
    There you go, direct link to the delay repay form.

    http://www.virgintrains.co.uk/assets/pdf/feedback/vt-customer-comment.pdf

    used these loads of times to get compo, virgin trains are normally very good at looking after their customers.
    Fares Advisor & Oyster Specialist - Newdeal/ukRail Fares Workshop Accredited
  • dggar
    dggar Posts: 670 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    JQ. wrote: »
    I booked a return train ticket between Manchester and Carlisle last week via Trainline.com - .

    TheTrainLine charge a booking fee.

    Unless the tickets are being sold cheaper than the SAME tickets bought from a TOC site (eg Virgin, TransPennine, East Coast etc.) don't use TheTrainLine.
  • JQ.
    JQ. Posts: 1,919 Forumite
    Cheers all. :beer:
This discussion has been closed.
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