Season ticket refund - can't work out if these calculations are correct? Help appreciated

minimetro123

Hello,

Would be very grateful if anyone can please help shed some light on the calculations below.

I've been trying to get to the bottom of this since 2020! It got lost in the Trainline's systems during the mass of season ticket cancellations at the start of the pandemic. The calculations don't look quite right to me, but happy to stand corrected! I'm finding this so confusing to work out...

I had a TfL Zones 1-6 season ticket paid for by my employer in the form of a season ticket loan, paid directly to Trainline by my employer, which I'd repay monthly from my salary.

The season ticket started in Nov 2019, and I paid the following from my payslips:
Nov 2019 - £117.55
Dec 2019 - £117.55
Jan 2020 - £117.55
Feb 2020 - £117.55
March 2020 - £117.55
April 2020 - £117.55
May 2020 - £117.55

HOWEVER, my I applied for a cancellation in March at the start of the pandemic, and had to chase this multiple times with Trainline/TfL/my employer as they kept on charging me via my payslip through March-May, even though the card was last used on 15 March and the cancellation request put through on 23 March.

In the end I was only refunded £64.90 in total, which doesn't sound right?

Surely I should at least be refunded for April & May's totals, as they (not sure who the delay was with) failed to cancel my ticket in March?

I was given the following calculations by my employer when I queried this:

£1,410 : Cost of ticket
£652.60 : Trainline refund to employer
£822.30 : Amount paid to date

Cost of ticket - Trainline refund = value of ticket used
£1,410 - £652.60 = £757.40

Amount paid to date - value of ticket used = refund due
£822.30 - £757.40 = £64.90

Refund due to employee is £64.90

Please could someone kindly help me understand how this works, and if this is correct or not? And why I don't get the value of April & May refunded, as I've technically overpaid for two months?

I'd be really grateful. Thank you so much.

onashoestring

Did you follow Trainline’s  procedure for cancellation as described here ? https://support.thetrainline.com/en/support/solutions/articles/78000000390-can-i-get-a-refund-on-my-season-ticket-

minimetro123

Hi onashoestring - yes, followed that procedure and did the exact same my colleagues did at the time. For some reason mine must have been lost during the process as they had no problem having theirs stopped straight away in March.

onashoestring

In that case your complaint should  be with Trainline who did not issue the refund in a timely manner . I would suggest sending an e-Mail to Trainline with proof of when you submitted your claim ( if you have it ) and requesting that your employer is refunded retrospectively back to the date it should have been . 

mtc95

Even if the cancellation was processed in time, I don't think you would get back the full amount of your April and May payments due to the way that TFL (like all train companies) calculate refunds for part-used season tickets.

The fact that you only used about 5 months out of 12 doesn't mean your company would get 7/12ths of the cost back.  Instead, TFL calculate how much a "5 months" season ticket would have been and subtract that from what you actually paid.  The per-month rate is higher for shorter periods than it is for a year so the true cost of your ticket was more than the £117.55 per month that you were paying.  On top of that, I think TFL charge an admin fee for processing refunds.

This may partly account for why you got back less than expected.  Of course, if it turns out they were late in processing your request then you should still persue that with them.

nyermen

mtc95 is right.  And bear in mind the loan and TFL are two different parts, TFL get their money in full from the loan up front, and then refund if cancelled.

Not sure of the prices back then, but if I did a Z1-6 annual today (numbers above seem odd for a Z1-6, doubt there's been a 100% increase in a few years?) and then cancelled after 5 months, it would be something like this:
- Monthly cost of annual 1-6: £2812 / 12 = £234 per month (The loan repayable each month over 12 months)
- For note: Monthly cost of Z1-6 monthly: £270 per month, weekly for note: £70.30
- If then after 5 months I cancelled an annual, TFL would replace the annual with equivalent monthlies out £2812 - (5*270) = £1350 refund (note the bit about loan vs TFL above)
- The loan company (your employer?) would then say okay you've paid £234 for 5 months, but on the refund, we've equivalent paid out £270 for 5 months (equivalent), so there's a gap we're still due (following month?)

To add - if you had a monthly rather than annual, the same concept would apply, with any part month being split into weeklies.
If they didn't do this, then many people would buy an annual and then cancel them when they went on holiday etc etc.