Compensation available for onward travel costs after delays?

Bazenko

Bonjour, Hello,

Yesterday I was delayed by two hours on IR1810 Aigle dep 28.03.2025 08:38Genève arr 28.03.2025 09:55 due to technical issues between Lausanne and Geneva.

This forced me to change the time of my Eurostar connection to London by two hours, resulting in a 50.50 GBP fee. I have already claimed compensation on the delayed train mentioned above. However, this only amounts to half of the 24 CHF cost of that ticket.

Am i entitled to any compensation towards the additional cost of the Eurostar caused by the delay?

Many thanks in advance/ Merci beaucoup.

Danhiel

Hello Bazenko

Unless you bought your ticket from Switzerland to UK in one transaction on the SBB site or app, your are not entitled to any compensation.

Kind regards
Danhiel

Bazenko

Hello Danhiel,

Thank you for your prompt response. That is dissapointing, but good to know that I could book the whole journey until London using the SBB app in future.

The pessimist in me thinks it is up to luck however… If I book everything through SBB, and there is a delay to my eurostar, I may find it difficult to claim compensation because the journey was booked on SBB, not through the official Eurostar site/app. As I said, this is just my pessimistic view. I will certainly consider booking it all through SBB in future.

Danhiel

Bazenko

Most European Railways have an « Agreement on Journey Continuation (AJC) », you can continue your journey with the same ticket and obtain a new reservation free of charge if necessary, but Eurostar didn’t sign this agreement.

Eurostar has HOTNAT (Hop on the next available train) but it concerns only missed connections between two high speed trains (for example TGV - Eurostar) at some hubs.

EU wants to promote trough tickets. Switzerland is not in EU, but takes up its rules. I don’t known if UK also kept them after the BREXIT. A new European ticketing system is planned.

Krist

Eurostar has joined the AJC, so you should have been able to just request that they endorse your ticket for the next train. Did you do that? Or did you assume that you had to change the ticket yourself at your own expense?

So you should have asked for a confirmation of the delay in Geneva, then you would have just boarded the next train to Paris (which I assume you did) and then in Paris Nord you would have gone to the ticket office and showed them the proof that you were delayed, and there they would have put you on the next train.

Danhiel

Krist

Thanks about the information about AJC and Eurostar. Sorry, the version I found was not updated.

Bazenko

Krist

Hi Krist.
Yes, I did assume that I had to change my train time at my own expense. That’s really good to know that as Eurostar are part of the AJC, I could have arrived at the gate and showed proof why I was late - and I would have been allowed on a later train.

I suppose the only time this might be tricky is if later trains are at full capacity? Anyway. Good to know, thank you.

As Virgin also now have trains coming from UK to Europe hopefully there will be more competitive prices on this route as well.

Krist

Most Eurostar trains have free capacity as constraints in the terminals prevent them from actually filling them. So yes, usually you can be on the next train, and Eurostar is rather flexible there.

Regarding Virgin: The news that they had managed to find train to run through the Channel tunnel was released on April 1st. Enough said…

Bazenko

Hi Krist, good to know, thank you!

Haha! we will see 😃

Krist

However Trenitalia just announced their plans. And they are the first ones where I believe it might actually happen.