Southern Trains Delay Repay refund rip-off

dominoman

Southern Trains into London Bridge have been shockingly bad recently.

I've decided to start claiming for my delays, despite the hassle. However when I received my voucher for £1.55 I was a bit miffed by how little it was. It is calculated based on my annual season ticket.

According to the Southern site, for Annual tickets – compensation is calculated on the basis of one return journey being made every Monday to Friday and one return journey being made at the weekend one week in four. This gives 520 journeys on Mondays to Fridays and 26 journeys at weekends. Therefore we divide the fare paid by 546 for the refund value per journey

That seems totally wrong. For a start if you take the average holiday of 25 days, plus 11 bank holidays, then that gives 449 journeys. That's a far more realistic figure, though in reality most people would do less if you allow for sickness, travel etc.

Is the way Southern calculate their refunds standard? Does anyone agree their "journey assumptions" are not fair?

wealdroam

Passenger Focus offer some of the information you asked about on their website, but not the detailed calculations.

However, on that same page they do say:

And if you do not receive what you are entitled to whether the minimum or under the train company’s different arrangements, please come to Passenger Focus. We can take up the complaint with the company on your behalf.

keyser666

dominoman wrote: »

Southern Trains into London Bridge have been shockingly bad recently.

I've decided to start claiming for my delays, despite the hassle. However when I received my voucher for £1.55 I was a bit miffed by how little it was. It is calculated based on my annual season ticket.

According to the Southern site, for Annual tickets – compensation is calculated on the basis of one return journey being made every Monday to Friday and one return journey being made at the weekend one week in four. This gives 520 journeys on Mondays to Fridays and 26 journeys at weekends. Therefore we divide the fare paid by 546 for the refund value per journey

That seems totally wrong. For a start if you take the average holiday of 25 days, plus 11 bank holidays, then that gives 449 journeys. That's a far more realistic figure, though in reality most people would do less if you allow for sickness, travel etc.

Is the way Southern calculate their refunds standard? Does anyone agree their "journey assumptions" are not fair?

Yep pretty much standard across all TOC's

tower

On my route "GreaterAnglian"

The level of this depends on the length of the delay, as follows:

30-59 minutes delay entitles you to compensation to the value of 50% of the cost of a Single ticket or 50% of the cost of either the outward or return portion of a Return ticket as appropriate; for season tickets and weekly tickets, compensation will be calculated as a proportion of the daily cost of the price of the ticket
For delays of over 60 minutes the amount of compensation is doubled to 100% of the cost of the Single ticket or either portion of the Return ticket

keyser666

tower wrote: »

On my route "GreaterAnglian"

The level of this depends on the length of the delay, as follows:

30-59 minutes delay entitles you to compensation to the value of 50% of the cost of a Single ticket or 50% of the cost of either the outward or return portion of a Return ticket as appropriate; for season tickets and weekly tickets, compensation will be calculated as a proportion of the daily cost of the price of the ticket
For delays of over 60 minutes the amount of compensation is doubled to 100% of the cost of the Single ticket or either portion of the Return ticket

It will still be worked out the same way

belisha-beacon

I travel with First Great Western and as far as I can tell, FGW season ticket holders are not allowed to claim for any delays at all. If they are really terrible, we get money off our next renewal of the ticket but only if trains are consistently late (not based on whether or not I have had the misfortune to get loads of delays in a row).

I think the amount you've been given back is pitiful, but if it is in line with the terms and conditions of carriage, which are published in advance (and it sounds like it is), then you've essentially agreed to those terms by buying the ticket. I would carry on claiming though - I bet it costs them more than that to process each of your claims and if everyone claimed what they were due it would encourage them to sort the issues out

Morglin

This guy did well:


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2893514/Rail-commuter-delayed-60-times-year-claims-1-000-cost-2015-season-ticket.html

Lin