Applied for South West Trains 'boundary fares' compensation? Act now to claim it

Last year, South West Trains agreed to pay up to £25 million in compensation after allegedly overcharging passengers who travelled out of London between 1 October 2015 and 20 August 2017 while holding a Transport for London (TfL) Travelcard.

If you were affected, you could submit a claim by 10 January 2025, and these claims have now been processed. While it's no longer possible to make a fresh claim, if you did so before the deadline, you may now need to act to get your money.

Act NOW to claim the cash

If your claim was accepted, you should have received an email from the administrator to let you know and confirm the amount due.

The email will have come from 'info@boundaryfares.com' – make sure to check your junk or spam folders if you don't see it in your inbox. If you still can't find it, you can try emailing the administrator to check the progress of your claim.

The email will also contain your 'Unique ID' and 'PIN', which you'll need in order to submit your bank account details through the claim's official website at www.boundaryfares.com/login. As always, beware of fraud and scams – only provide your details through the official portal and check the email and website address carefully beforehand.

Based on emails sent to successful claimants earlier this month, an initial deadline of Monday 21 April had been set. But more recent 'reminder' emails we've seen indicate this has now been extended until Thursday 8 May. Once you submit your details, the money should be paid by the end of June 2025.

What the South West Trains claim was about

The payouts follow a group legal claim that settled out of court in 2024. The case had been brought by campaigner Justin Gutmann, who argued that an estimated 1.4 million passengers who held TfL Travelcards had effectively been charged twice for parts of their journeys with South West Trains, which ran the South Western railway until 20 August 2017.

The legal case against the firm revolved around so-called 'boundary fares'. Boundary fares let you travel beyond the zones of your Travelcard by only paying for the portion of the journey outside those zones.

For example, if you had a zone 1-4 Travelcard, but needed to travel from London Waterloo in zone 1 to Reading (outside the TfL zones), you should've been able to buy a fare from the edge of zone 4 to Reading – as you would have already paid for the part of your journey covering zones 1-4 through your Travelcard.

Mr Gutmann and his lawyers claimed that South West Trains didn't do enough to make customers aware of boundary fares, and didn't make it easy enough to buy them – though South West Trains denied this, and has not admitted any liability as part of the settlement.

Similar claims about other train firms are ongoing

Mr Gutmann and his legal team are also pursuing claims relating to boundary fares against South Western Railway (which took over from South West Trains in August 2017), Gatwick Express, Great Northern, Southeastern, Southern, and Thameslink.

The next trial in relation to these claims is scheduled for June 2025, and there'll be at least one more after that – so it will be some time before we find out whether any compensation is due. In the meantime, it's worth keeping any evidence of your Travelcard ownership and train ticket purchases just in case.