Refund for a missed rail connection Gill Charlton, consumer expert, replies A spokesman for Rail Europe said some journeys come up with a short transfer time because the connections shown are built by SNCF and are primarily aimed at a French audience. Transfer times do not make allowances for the time taken to disembark from the end carriages of Eurostar and to reach the main concourse at Gare du Nord. "We cannot fix a default transfer time as suggested by Mr Hunter, as the time required is different for all passengers," said the spokesman. What may be sufficient for a businessman may not be enough for an older couple with luggage. By excluding the shorter transfer times, we would be greatly reducing the number of options available to book. To alert passengers who may find tight timings difficult, Rail Europe has inserted a click-through beneath each selected itinerary which advises allowing a minimum of one hour for the transfer. Even so, Mr Hunter is right to be annoyed at what happened . A Rail Europe employee told him that if his party missed the connection their tickets would be honoured on the next available service, but SNCF staff would not allow this. When I first spoke to Rail Europe about the matter, I was told that if the Eurostar train manager endorses the tickets it helps secure a free transfer, but that such transfers are always at the discretion of station staff. Rail Europe offered Mr Hunter a £100 voucher as a goodwill gesture but the spokesman said it could not refund the new fares as it was only the booking agent. I thought that Rail Europe should sort this problem out. The agency is wholly owned by SNCF and if it sells through-tickets for services from Britain to destinations in France, they should be treated in a similar way to flight tickets and honoured on the next available service. It turns out that SNCF is a member of Railteam, an alliance of European rail companies, which has a code of practice. This says through-tickets issued by other members should be transferred free of charge to later services. So why don't Parisian rail staff stick to the code of conduct? I spoke to SNCF direct and it says that all passengers with through-tickets should be "transferred smoothly to their next train." However, Parisian stations do not yet participate in Railteam's no-questions-asked Hotnat (hop on the next available train) service. In Mr Hunter's case, SNCF now admits this was a "communication error which is being corrected" and it has agreed to refund the cost of the new tickets in full.