birthday sleeper treat spoilt!

[whole diary]

[bigdaz]

Hey Grahame

I don't think that even if I eventually get to go on the sleeper that I can up the numbers on this one!  I know I'm large and that it looks like I'm carrying twins, but I've tried pushing them out, but no good !  lol!   

[SDS]

   I received this letter in the post today:

snip
Whilst we do pay compensation for a delay of an hour or more, our records show that this service arrived in London Paddington 4 minutes early as it was able to make up time during the night.  Therefore I am afraid that no compensation is due on this occasion.

I have now lodged a further complaint to state that if you pay for a sleeper berth and don't get one, then this is a breach of contract and I should be entitled to a full refund. 

Am awaiting the outcome.

Your views??

Hopefully you have got your money back. Found this while looking for something else.

NRCoC^▸ (National Rail Conditions of Carriage)
41. Refund of reservation fees
If a seat reservation, sleeper reservation or cycle reservation is not honoured, the Train Company responsible will refund any reservation fee paid. If the Train Company is unable to provide alternative equivalent accommodation for you or your cycle, you will be compensated for the inconvenience. The value of the compensation will be no more than
the price of the full single fare for the journey. If you are unable or have decided not to travel you will be entitled to claim a refund under Condition 26 for the relevant part of your journey.

[adc82140]

Write to Mark Hopwood at FGW^▸ (First Great Western) HQ^▸ (HeadQuarters) in Plymouth. OK he won't read it himself, but someone in his office will and escalate the issue at Customer Services. Enclose all correspondence so far.

I had cause to write for a refund on an advance purchase a while ago- the train was severely delayed, FGW were completely inflexible about letting me travel on other trains, so I had to go home and get the car.

Customer Services said it was my decision not to travel, so no refund was due. After writing to Mark Hopwood I had rail vouchers to the full value by return of post.

[Mookiemoo]

Write to Mark Hopwood at FGW^▸ (First Great Western) HQ^▸ (HeadQuarters) in Plymouth. OK he won't read it himself, but someone in his office will and escalate the issue at Customer Services. Enclose all correspondence so far.

I had cause to write for a refund on an advance purchase a while ago- the train was severely delayed, FGW were completely inflexible about letting me travel on other trains, so I had to go home and get the car.

Customer Services said it was my decision not to travel, so no refund was due. After writing to Mark Hopwood I had rail vouchers to the full value by return of post.

See thats why it really matters who the guard is

The other sunday I was on the rammed 1512 with no buffet and got off at bath (was almost riots due to no buffet and I wanted off) - had an advance ticket but found the TM^▸ (Train Manager, or Ticket Machine, or Temple Meads (Bristol), depending on context) and explained and asked if I could use my existing ticket (I would have paid a single and weekend first upgrade if needed) and got told no problem

[inspector_blakey]

Write to Mark Hopwood at FGW^▸ (First Great Western) HQ^▸ (HeadQuarters) in Plymouth. OK he won't read it himself, but someone in his office will and escalate the issue at Customer Services. Enclose all correspondence so far.

Probably no need - customer services are very good about keeping records of correspondence at their end, and my understanding is that whenever you send a complaint back to them because you're dissatisfied with the response then things are automatically escalated to the supervisory level. An example from my experience a while ago - on a train from Didcot to Whitland (this being on a summer Saturday, with a diversion via somewhere or other so the journey was going to take about 5 hours) the customer host refused to serve me any refreshments after Bristol because he said I had "used my ration" of three items. Apparently at the time there was an edict regarding "abuse" of weekend first upgrades, but my ticket wasn't a weekend first and he was just making up the rules to be awkward. Customer services informed and they wrote back to say that he had probably just run out of stuff. I emailed back to say that that was categorically not the case, he had plenty of comps but just refused to issue them, and suggested that as some kind of goodwill gesture they might like to send me a catering voucher for a few quid.

I was amazed (in a good way!) when a few days later I received a very apologetic response email from someone senior in customer relations offering me a free "anytime/anywhere" first class return journey.

[Super Guard]

I had cause to write for a refund on an advance purchase a while ago- the train was severely delayed, FGW^▸ (First Great Western) were completely inflexible about letting me travel on other trains, so I had to go home and get the car.

Mark Hopwood @ Swindon HQ^▸ (HeadQuarters) is more likely to get to his "people" rather than Plymouth I guess ?

Without wanting to go OT, if you are delayed on an Advance, i'd be interested to know why FGW were inflexible about travel on later trains 

[adc82140]

Drifting OT a bit....

I was travelling from Twyford to Gowerton (South Wales). Got to Reading OK, but the Swansea train was at least 40 mins late. This would have meant missing the Gowerton connection, which is bi-hourly. There was a Cardiff Central train also running late, but would have let me maintain a connection at Cardiff onto Gowerton. I suggested that in order to complete my journey I could travel on this train. The answer was negative. I then asked if I would be entitled to a taxi at Swansea if I missed the connection. I was told no. I didn't have the time to hang around Swansea for two hours, so went back to Twyford, went home and drove to Gowerton instead (about three hours). I arrived at least an hour before I would have done if I'd gone on my booked train and waited around at Swansea.

The in initial response from CS was that as the train had run (albeit very late) I was not entitled to a refund on an advance purchase ticket.