Travel Question: Can we claim for rail journey fiasco?

Q I live in Lancaster, and booked a flight from Glasgow airport to Malaga. But the train we were due to travel on to Glasgow was cancelled because of damage to overhead cables. We had to get a train firstly to Carlisle and another train to Glasgow central. We would still have had time to get to the airport to catch our train but the ScotRail train was late arriving.

We missed our flight, had to book into a hotel and pay much more for a flight the following day. We are trying to claim on our insurance. Do you think we have a leg to stand on?

Janet N

A From Lancaster, reaching Glasgow airport takes at least twice as long as the more obvious choice, Manchester airport, so I imagine you must have got a very good price on the Scottish departure.

But as you discovered, to your considerable cost, the longer and more complex the journey to the airport, the more that can go wrong.

The chances of success with a travel insurance claim depend on a couple of things. First, whether the policy covers missed departure due to public transport failure (cheaper policies may not). Second, whether the insurer concludes you were not taking undue risks with your travel plan.

If you cross the first hurdle, you will have to provide proof that your planned timings were not too tight, and evidence of the rail snarl-up.

Should your claim be rejected, you could appeal to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which regulates insurance firms. But a more fruitful option could be to claim from the train operators.

They take a case-by-case approach to claims for “consequential losses” such as yours. The Consumer Rights Act may come to your assistance; it requires companies to behave with “reasonable skill and care”. If you feel they have not, and thereby caused you to miss the flight, it might be worth claiming.

Every day our travel correspondent Simon Calder tackles a reader’s question. Just email yours to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder