Delayed trains: This is how railway customers receive compensation

Signal disturbances, construction sites, storms: trains are delayed for very different reasons, but it is always annoying.

After all, customers can often ask for compensation or reimbursement:

• One hour late at the destination, for example, there is a quarter of the ticket price in Germany,
• in more than two hours it is half.
• If you own a Bahncard 100, there are ten euros in the second class if the train arrives more than 60 minutes late at the finish line.

But the compensation must be applied for by customers at the rail service center for passenger rights. There are either on the train, at the train station or online to print a form . They have to fill in the form and hand in the ticket or, for example, their BahnCard number in a travel center or send it by mail.

Send digitally - that does not work. Which in turn ensures the next trouble for many a consumer. It is understandable that many customers feel that no longer up to date, says a railway spokesman. Deutsche Bahn also wants to change that in the long term. But technically that is complex and challenging. For example, it is not an option to digitize the process in part and limit it to tickets purchased online.

For frequent travelers, who are also potentially affected by delays, the track spokesman has a tip: fill in the form online and save it in the computer. Data such as address or account details do not have to be entered every time. This saves some time. But printing and mailing or dropping off at the station is inevitable.

Service providers take charge for collecting

If you want to do without this analog way, find providers on the Internet . One is Zug-Erstattung.de. The principle: You upload your ticket, the system reads the data and prepares the application based on it. You even add your address and account details. The sending to the railway takes over afterwards the offerer. This costs from the second application 0.99 euro fee. Refundrebel.com does the same, until the end of January 2019 toll-free.

Bahn-Buddy.de goes even further: The portal checks on the basis of the uploaded ticket the claims of the customer and makes an offer for an immediate payment of the compensation. For this, a fee is incurred, the amount of which, according to company information, is oriented towards the chances of success of the application. A maximum of 20 percent of the compensation in the room, on average twelve percent would be deducted, says Philipp Eischet. He is co-founder of RightNow, which owns Bahn-Buddy.de.

Means: If theoretically a sum of 50 euros, the railway customer receives at twelve percent fee still 44 euros. The money will flow in a short time, is the promise. And it is an independent of whether Bahn-Buddy.de ultimately collects the sum successfully for themselves from the Deutsche Bahn.

In cases of hardship, the arbitration board söp

How long does it take until money flows? The railway must process an application within one month. Most of the time it's faster, the station spokesman said. At the beginning of November, the average time was around ten days. Contrary to many airlines, which put themselves in compensation demands, can usually enforce claims against the railway without any problems - to the assessment comes Karl-Peter Naumann from the passenger association Pro Bahn.

Only in the case of rather rare cases of hardship consumers would have to call the conciliation body for public transport (söp). They settle in 60 to 70 percent of the cases in the customer sense. Accordingly, Naumann says to the offer of BahnBuddy.de: "If it comes down to having the money earlier, minus the fees, of course, can do that." But it was not a survival service.

Good to know: According to Bahn, the reason for the delay does not matter for claims. In contrast to airlines, the Group can not rely on force majeure. Engine driver strike, storm damage, flooded routes - if a train arrives too late or falls out, you still have the right to compensation or reimbursement.

If a train is in transit with a lot of delay, train attendants sometimes distribute the forms during the journey and confirm the delay with a pliers impression. But that was not necessary in itself, explains the railway spokesman: Whether there was a delay, can be in the application review in the system.