Great Western Coffee Shop

I have been meaning to get round to putting this on the forum for some time. Sorry its rather long. What do members think I should have done to make the failed claims a success.
All these journeys where made in 2018 or 2019

1. Success
Journey was Pershore (PSH) to Yarmouth Isle of Wight (YMH) leaving on the first train on a Saturday Morning.
Journey legs Pershore-Reading, Reading-Basingstoke, Basingstoke-Brockenhurst, Brockenhurst-Lymington pier and Ferry to Yarmouth.
On time to Basingstoke then the next train a Waterloo Weymouth fast was delayed at Wimbledon.
I caught a Bournemouth stopper that left Basingstoke more or less on time and this was actually before the fast was due to depart. However the stopper is due to wait at Southampton Central for the fast to overtake. So I arrived at Brockenhurst after the Lymington branch train had departed. I caught the next train to Lymington pier arriving 30 minutes later than planned. This made me 1 hour late at Yarmouth as the ferry was running hourly.
I made a delay repay application online to SWR or SWT not sure who was running things at the time. I received 50% of the cost of my single journey including the part that is for the ferry so from a rail point of view I got more than I expected.

2. Fail
Journey was New Street to Pershore arriving at Pershore at around 19:00 on a weekday. I was at New Street about 17:10 and had a choice of trains to Worcester 17:20, 17:50 and 18:00.
I caught the 17:20 as I had no reason to hang about at New Street although a Journey planner would tell me to catch the 18:00 as that provided at 10 minute connection to the Worcester-Pershore train.
On arrival at Worcester Shrub Hill on the 17:20 I should have had to wait about 50 minutes (18:00 to 18:50) for the Pershore train. However I found that the Pershore train was cancelled. It was an IET and the French windscreen wipers had failed. This meant I had to wait until 20:00 for the next train to Pershore. I enquired of the West Midland Trains staff at Shrub Hill but was told GWR would not provide a taxi. The last bus from Worcester to Pershore leaves at about 18:10 from the bus station and I did not have time to get there.
While I was waiting at Shrub Hill the next trains from New Street failed to arrive due to an incident at Bromsgrove. So if I had waited for the 17:50 or 18:00 from new street I would have been very late. and certainly not caught the train to Pershore at 20:00
I tried to claim from GWR but the computer repeatedly threw out my claim. On the grounds that the journey did not exist.

So what should I have put on my claim?
Should I have claimed from West Midland as thought I had caught the 18:00?

3. Fail
Journey was Banbury to Pershore leaving Banbury around 14:45 on a weekday. When I arrived at Banbury station I found that Cross Country southbound trains where running about an Hour and 50 late. But as they run every half hour and I had arrived 10 minutes before a train was due I arrived in Oxford almost on time.
I had a 50 minute wait in Oxford for the next Pershore train. One had left on time 10 minutes before I arrived and they run hourly so I left the station and went for a walk along the canal. When I returned to Oxford station 40 minutes later I discovered that the train that had left just before I arrived at Oxford had struck a deer on the single line to Charlbury. The line was blocked and all trains where cancelled. I joined a huge queue and was put in a taxi with 4 other passengers for Pershore. This was done very quickly and efficiently by the GWR staff and the taxi operators man on the ground, The taxi driver was not happy as it was now 16:15 getting dark and he was due to hand over to a fresh driver at 17:30. But was now headed for somewhere he did not know and would not get back to Oxford for hours. But the supervisor told him to get on with it if he wanted to work on the station taxi rank. So we where on our way but the driver did not know his way and none of the others in the taxi seemed to know the way ether. I told the driver to get out of Oxford towards Woodstock and I would direct him from there. It was now the rush hour so we didn't rush anywhere. I was about 2 and a half  hours late getting to Pershore. I also spent most of the journey twisting round to talk to the driver as I was in one of the rearward facing seats in a black cab.
I tried to claim but again the computer could not find the journey as I was not sure what time the train from Banbury to Oxford should have left.

How should I have entered this claim on the website?   

It's a pity there's no 'comments' box (IIRC); the cynic in me says it's in the hope that people just won't bother going through with more complex claims, but it's just as likely to be because no-one's really considered more complex cases when designing the process.

I think if I had this issue I'd put in as close a journey as possible e.g. for '2' the delay on the Bham - Worcs leg, and see if the system accepts that, in the hope that it would then fail validation only after it's in the system. Then GWR would probably get in touch to tell me it's not their issue, which would create a 'case' with a real human, and I could then explain the issue. The worst outcome would be if the dummy journey entered successfully went through as a claim, but with a lower value than the actual delay!

Personally, I use the paper form to claim on these types of journey & add a written explanation if necessary - and never failed to receive compensation. It's not much extra work as long as you keep a few paper claim forms to hand (I think there may even be a pdf of it on the GWR website now?)

The online version is linked to the journey planner (which always looks for the quickest journeys such that catching an earlier train is never considered to be a realistic journey. One of its many faults IMHO)

I think the approach taken by Cross Country XC) - who delivered SWTSMBO and myself to Wakefield an hour late on 24th December (although the fault actually lay with Network Rail, Mother Nature or god depending on your view of these things) - might be best in that you submit an initial basic claim and then get a pretty rapid holding reply which invites the submission of relevant additional information, something which can be ignored for simple cases.

However I was a tad surprised that XC insisted on having the name and address of my fellow passenger so that they could pay two separate refunds if it was deemed appropriate. Presumably somebody in XC customer service has misinterpreted the meaning of 'Delay Repay'.  ;D   

After a disrupted journey to Windermere from Temple Meads, I made my first ever claim for delay-repay. The first leg, Bristol to Birmingham, looked seriously in doubt as RTT showed it running 38 minutes late from Plymouth as we prepared to head for the station. While we were considering whether or not to head off for the train an hour earlier, I checked again, and found a STP entry with an extra 1235 Cross Country train. So we got that, our originally planned service, and left bang on time.

After an incident free ride, we boarded the Avanti train for Edinburgh and left Birmingham on time, but just before Sandwell and Dudley, we stopped abruptly. Someone had jumped from a road bridge on the track in front of our train, and had been hit. Amazingly, he wasn't badly hurt, but we remained there for 45 minutes, before moving again to terminate at Wolverhampton, for obvious reasons of staff welfare. Not their fault. We eventually boarded the next Edinburgh train, an Avanti diesel, which I didn't know they had. We missed our planned Northern Rail service to Windermere, and arrived just over an hour late.

I had bought the tickets (for 3 of us) through GWR, but made my claim to Avanti as it was their train that was delayed. I was surprised that it was met at all, but it was paid in full, £126.00.

I chuckled at the reference on my bank statement "BANK GIRO CREDIT REF FIRST CUSTOMER CON". Not the first, surely?