Transport User Voice – January 2021 – Casework successes

17 December 2020

How we’ve helped passengers

Abellio Corporate Travel

Ms C applied for her season ticket refund past the 56-day deadline. Although her claim was declined as per the policy, we appealed the matter on the basis that her mother passed away in April. The train operator accepted this appeal and has issued a refund (backdated over seven months).

Trainline

Ms S had a flexible ticket bought through Trainline which she couldn’t use as a medical appointment had been changed due to second lockdown. She was due to travel on 27 November and it needed to be changed to 4 December. However, she was unable to exchange her ticket for another date which meant having to claim a refund and then making a new booking. This was unacceptable to her as there was a £10 admin fee for the refund which was almost half of the cost of the tickets. On appeal by Transport Focus, Trainline looked again at the correspondence and agreed to refund the administration fee as a gesture of goodwill as the cancellation was due to the change of medical appointment.

West Midlands Trains

Mr P bought tickets to travel between London and Telford in February in April. The tickets were sent to West Midlands Trains’ (WMT) as they couldn’t be used but only one was refunded as the second was said to have been received out of time though both had been sent together. On appeal, WMR apologised and agreed to refund the additional ticket and put the mistake down to human error.

Mr P said:

“Thank you. I am grateful for your action… The amount was small but it was the illogical reasons given which caused me to pursue the matter. I thought all along it was a simple mistake, which was excusable when people were working under pressure in unusual circumstances and often from home, and probably with extra inexperienced staff. I expected them to say ‘sorry – we made a mistake, here is the other half.’ I would of course have been happy with that.”

 

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