Virgin Trains Offers Cash Compensation as Default

Image courtesy of Virgin Trains

Virgin Trains will now offer cash payment (in the form of a cheque) as compensation for delays in excess of 30 minutes on its East and West Coast routes as a standard default option. Customers will still be able to opt for rail vouchers.

The news comes after Virgin Trains became the first UK TOC to automatically transfer compensation directly into customers’ bank accounts. It is also working on ways to extend this service to more customers.

Which? Executive Director Richard Lloyd, said:

“Passengers are rightly frustrated by the significant barriers that exist when claiming compensation for train delays and cancellations, so it is good to see Virgin Trains setting the pace by offering cash as the default option for compensation. We would urge all train operating companies to act quickly to implement this, and further changes, to improve the process for their customers.”

Graham Leech, Group Commercial Director at Virgin Trains said:

“We always want to be on the side of passengers. That’s why we wholly support the move to offer cash compensation as a first option to customers and why we were the first operator to introduce Automatic Delay Repay. We’re committed to making claiming compensation simpler and clearer for customers. We never want passengers to suffer delays or disruption but when things do go wrong we want to put it right. Automatic Delay Repay means eligible customers have the compensation automatically paid into their bank account . We are looking at introducing this on our east coast route too.”