Eurostar customer service derailed

I was supposed to travel from London St Pancras to Paris for a three day trip in July. The Eurostar train left an hour late, then broke down before reaching the Channel Tunnel. We were stuck on board in sweltering heat with no updates, no electricity and no air conditioning for over an hour, before the train returned to St Pancras. There was no apology or service information from Eurostar. At St Pancras we were told to re-book a seat on the app or join a huge queue at the ticket office. The app kept showing error messages and was unusable. At 4pm, six hours after our original departure time, a member of staff told me that there were no places available that day and that we had to make our own way to Paris. I ended up going home and abandoning the trip.

Eurostar gave me a time-limited e-voucher in exchange for my ticket, instead of a refund . And my travel insurer, Holidaysafe, refuses to pay the cost of the hotel I had booked in Paris, without a letter from Eurostar explaining the cause and duration of the delay. I provided a leaflet which Eurostar staff distributed to passengers confirming that the service had been cancelled. He claims he cannot contact Eurostar directly due to data protection. Eurostar not responding.RS, Letchworth Garden City, Herts

Eurostar seems to have lost its grip on communications - 82% of customers on site Trustpilot review web rates it as bad, and unresponsive customer service is the common theme. The company rolled out the new favorite corporate excuse when I asked why: the blame, it says, lies squarely with Covid. Its contact center is apparently still reeling from unprecedented call volumes during the shutdowns, and it is aware that passengers are facing long waits to get through. What is his solution? To eliminate its helpline so that customers can no longer encumber it with their requests. Or, as Eurostar puts it, so that it can deal with "the existing backlog of inquiries and better prioritize urgent cases".

Complainants must therefore waiting for Eurostar to respond to online complaints as it pleases, and the 1.7 million homes in the UK that don't have internet access are stuffed. Magnanimously, the company tells me that while it doesn't usually offer refunds on e-vouchers it encourages customers to accept when a service is cancelled, it will in your case. He also promised to provide the required information to Holidaysafe.

Holidaysafe's interpretation of customer service is equally discouraging. The claim that confirming a cancellation with a train company is a data protection breach is nonsense. It says: "We have asked our insurer to reconsider the claim due to the circumstances, and are pleased to say that they have now agreed to accept the information available to confirm the delay was over 12 hours and to pay for accommodation losses in Paris. We apologize for the delay in settling the claim."

Eurostar has since sent the money, but two weeks after the apologies from Holidaysafe, they still haven't paid.

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