Avanti delay 21 February at 2:24PM edited 21 February at 2:34PM in Public transport & cycling 5 replies 146 views

lookstraightahead

Hello all
i recently bought a return ticket, paying for the flexibility of two train companies.
on my return journey, the two fast avanti trains were cancelled which meant I had to catch the slower, non-avanti train and set off earlier than anticipated to get back on time. It effectively took out my options.
can I claim for anything from avanti? 

Wyndham

I did this back in December. I had to fight a bit - delay repay was refused - but I then appealed and got it. In my case, trains had been cancelled all day, and absolutely no information at Euston (boards were down, no one to ask, lots of tannoy announcements about not travelling if you didn't need to) so I took a different option and got on a really overcrowded Chiltern train to Birmingham from Marylebone. All very annoying, upsetting and unpleasant, which, unfortunately, sums up my recent experience with Avanti!

goater78

I think the problem you have is you got an earlier train so weren’t actually delayed. If you had got a later train due to these cancellations and were late arriving at your destination then you could have claimed. 

lookstraightahead

I've put in a claim for the cancelled trains (I bought for flexibility ie I could have got a cheaper ticket without using avanti). We'll see how it goes. There was no space to make a comment but I suppose they will see from the bar code that I used my ticket. Even if it was in another train line.

How can avanti be paid if their trains were cancelled - interesting scenario. Will let you know what happens, I've nothing to lose by fighting. I actually had to leave my lunch early to get the slower train so that I could make my connection. Thanks both 

Wyndham

lookstraightahead said:

How can avanti be paid if their trains were cancelled - interesting scenario.

I'm honestly not sure how they are making any money at the moment. On a train in January that was late, and one of the people around me mentioned Delay Repay, and of the six of us in the conversation, we'd all claimed it recently. They must be losing so much money because they are not providing a good service!

lookstraightahead

Ok so they've given me 1/4 of the whole ticket (half the return ) claiming that theoretically I was less than 59 mins late because I could have caught the other company train which got in 59 minutes after the avanti train.

I tried to argue that none of their trains ran so they took away my flexibility to use them.

had I just bought an avanti ticket instead of a flexible I would have probably got a full refund. But because I paid for being able to use a different train company, they didn't refund me.