Trainpal ticket refund

JacCritter

Hi!
I bought a return from Brighton to Stafford via trainpal a week ago for £97.40, cheaper than booking direct with Avanti, which was £119 I think. On Thursday I started sniffing and coughing and on Friday took a COVID test, which showed positive for COVID.
I tried to reschedule the trip (to my 82 year old mother with Parkinson's), but all the other options were coming up as my having to pay at least £44 more than I'd already paid, and often they were on west Midlands trains which stops at every station and would increase the journey time by 1.5 hours. I asked for a refund, sent a picture of my COVID test and rebooked for June (for £117 this time, a saving of £1.50 on split ticketing 🙄, including the use of a regional Railcard 😞).
I got a message today saying they'd refunded me £30 less the £4.99 admin fee, so cancelling has cost me over £70. I contacted their chatline and it seems all the avanti elements were advance and therefore not refundable (who knew????) unless I had a sick note from my doctor.
As anyone who has been able to get in touch with their NHS GP will know, the first 7 days of any period of sick leave are self certified, by which time I may not even be infectious any more. As Avanti won't accept the photo of the test as evidence, I'm assuming they won't accept a 7 day self certification either, and if I am still sick after 7 days will they say the sick note relates to the period after travel? Or do I have to suck it up and pay my GP for a private sick note, which would probably use most of the £70 I might get back? I've tried the doom loop of the Avanti website for more details of the medical report/sick note requirements but keep getting redirected into a loop. The NHS website isn't much better in terms of what I can expect from my GP. I have a COVID headache made worse by this fresh hell. Has anyone any suggestions of what evidence I need, how I can get it or whether I should just suck up the £70 loss and never by advance tickets or split tickets again?
Thanks

savergrant

A quick look at their website and, without being logged in anyway, it isn't clear whether the tickets are advance or flexible. Depending on when you were planning on travelling it doesn't look like a great saving, was the avanti price quoted an advance fare?

JacCritter

I only found out that some parts of the journey were advance and some off peak when I got the confirmation email having bought the tickets. I didn't even know advance was non-refundable until today. 

daveyjp

I've never used that site, but after doing a test booking the details of the type of tickets priced up as part of split ticketing are available prior to purchase.

After you have chosen the journey you wish to take click the 'split tickets' link under the quoted price on the right hand side of the screen for details of tickets for each leg of the journey.

Advance tickets are non refundable unless the change of plan is due to the train operating company actions - delay or cancellation of a service.

For refunds due to illness you need either a full price anytime ticket, or third party insurance.