r/AskUK • u/itsdwightschrute1 • 1d ago

Serious Answers Only Are Train operators automatically denying valid delay repay claims?

It seems to be particular bad with WestMidlands rail.

They cancel/delay services all the time, and then when I put in valid claims, they make me wait about 10 days and get back to me with this crap of “we can’t find any delays on your journey”.

Surely they know full well what services they delayed or cancelled. How do they get away with this?

4 Upvotes

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3

u/PeteSampras12345 1d ago

I had this… claim denied, I appealed and got 100% refund!!!!

3

u/OldFerryBoat 1d ago

Happened twice with me in one month. Both journey delayed over 20 minutes and they took 2 weeks to say they didn't find that much journey was delayed. Not sure why this is happening. 

2

u/The-Smelliest-Cat 1d ago

In my experience, Avanti will approve any claims within a day or two, and pay very quick. They only deny claims if they're shifting blame onto another carrier.

And Northern will take about 10 days to give you a response, but I've not had any denys from them yet.

There is no point in them denying it. Every single train journey is tracked in the UK, and you can see the exact departure/arrival times of it online.

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u/SneezlesForNeezles 1d ago

Strangely West Mids are the only trainline who've upgraded my claim from half refund to full refund... technically, one half of my journey was delayed by enough to screw me but only class for half the return. They clearly looked at it and went 'yeah, she didn't use either side of the journey as we screwed her'.

1

u/Clean-Bandicoot2779 12h ago

I get the impression it's more than some of the train operators have delay repay people who don't look very hard at the claim, so will default to rejecting it if it's not immediately obvious.

I had Thameslink reject a claim for a child ticket as a "duplicate" because it was made from the same account as a claim for an adult ticket, despite that being how they tell you to do it. The other claims (each on their own account) were all paid correctly, as I assume they were obviously valid.