Coronavirus - Ticket Refund Policy

Dear Travel Agent,

Our TOC members have agreed a national coronavirus related ticket refund policy as described below:

Refund Administration Fees for Anytime and Off-Peak Tickets

All TOCs listed below have agreed that the administration fee for refunds should be waived for all Anytime and Off-Peak tickets.

Advance Purchase Ticket Refunds

All TOCs listed below have agreed that changes to Advance tickets should be permitted free of charge, provided that the change is requested before the original travel date.

• Avanti West Coast
• c2c
• Caledonian Sleeper
• Chiltern Railway
• CrossCountry
• East Midlands Railway
• Gatwick Express
• Grand Central
• Great Northern
• Greater Anglia
• GWR
• Hull Trains
• LNER
• London Northwestern Railway
• Merseyrail
• Northern
• ScotRail
• South Western Railway
• Southeastern
• Southern
• Thameslink
• TransPennine Express
• Transport for Wales
• West Midlands Railway
   

Please note that if the new tickets are more expensive when the client requests a change of travel plan, then the client will have to pay the difference.

For any TOC not mentioned above, please contact them for further instructions for Advance Purchase tickets.

The above agreement will be in place for all tickets valid to travel from Tuesday 17 March until Thursday 30 April 2020.

Timeframes for Refund Submissions
We appreciate that many offices may be closed due to recent government guidance, and this will cause disruption to your usual office procedures, one being the submission of refund requests.

Therefore, we have relaxed the usual timeframes required for submitting refund requests.

The current requirement for refund submissions is that your clients must submit tickets for refund to your agency no later than 28 days from the expiry date of the ticket. Your agency should then ensure that the refund application is submitted to TARS during the same accounting period.

Clients should continue to send their refund requests to you within the 28 day period, enclosing documentary evidence such as a dated refund form/letter, confirming the date the request has been sent to your agency.

However, as from 19th March 2020, refund requests sent by travel agents to TARS will be accepted for up to 2 months from the date the refund was received at your agency. This arrangement will continue until further notice.

Refund Processing
For all coronavirus related refunds, where no fee is to be charged for refunded Anytime and Off-Peak tickets, and for exchanged Advance Purchase tickets, they must be sent to TARS for processing.

The Evolvi TIS cannot process auto refunds without the usual fee being applied and so you will need to send them to TARS, with the usual documentation to;

TARS
Adetiq
Avery House
69 North Street
Portslade, Brighton
East Sussex
BN41 1DH
 

For more information, please go to www.nationalrail.co.uk/coronavirus

Rail Delivery Group Travel Agents Team