Club Avanti to launch

[MKB]

Club Avanti | Train Travel Rewards | Avanti West Coast

Discover Club Avanti, the rewards programme from Avanti West Coast offering perks to Silver, Gold and Platinum members. Join for free to start earning rewards today.

www.avantiwestcoast.co.uk

Club Avanti offers everything from 10% off your next journey to a free First Class or Standard Premium return ticket. You'll also enjoy 10% off food and drink along with a whole range of exclusive member offers.

You'll soon see how rewarding train journeys can be.


If you want to be among the first to join, create an online account with Avanti and sign up to receive marketing communications. We’ll then invite you to become a Club Avanti member.

After gutting -- and, it seems, now retiring -- Virgin's excellent loyalty programme Traveller, Avanti are about to launch Club Avanti. Apart from getting you 10% off on-board food and drinks just for signing up, the programme seems to be incredibly underwhelming and not likely to drive spend with Avanti when other operators are regularly offering discounts of 5% to 10% to book your Avanti train travel with them.

Adults who travel together using personal railcards (e.g Senior Railcards) can each earn Club Avanti rewards provided they each book on their own Avanti account, but adults who travel on Family or Two-Together Railcards can only earn on one account, which seems rather ill thought out. I can't imagine many corporate users being happy booking a group of colleagues on a train and having to book each one separately so that they can earn.

 

[AlterEgo]

One free first class return ticket for over 21 trips a year isn’t a great perk. Nothing like the old Traveller club!

 

[Howardh]

×
It has not been possible to register, as an account with this email address already exists. If you can’t remember your password, please click on the forgotten password link on the login page.

Hmmm.

So I've logged in to my account, but no sign of how to get this loyalty bonus.

 

[westv]

Hmmm.

So I've logged in to my account, but no sign of how to get this loyalty bonus.

You are obviously not loyal enough!

 

[mmh]

After gutting -- and, it seems, now retiring -- Virgin's excellent loyalty programme Traveller, Avanti are about to launch Club Avanti.

Invitation-only loyalty programmes are probably not the sort of thing a taxpayer funded railway should be offering, to be fair.

 

[AlterEgo]

Invitation-only loyalty programmes are probably not the sort of thing a taxpayer funded railway should be offering, to be fair.

Why not? Why shouldn't the railways have a loyalty scheme, if it brings in more business?

 

[fgwrich]

Why not? Why shouldn't the railways have a loyalty scheme, if it brings in more business?

Indeed, if it grows traffic and business then I don't see why the railways shouldn't offer such schemes. That said, I'd like to hope anything in the future is a bit more generous than Avanti's rather poor effort - but the words Avanti and Poor effort seem to go together like Jam and Doughnut.

 

[JaJaWa]

The description on every tier says

10% off drinks and snacks onboard, every trip

Yet the T&C says

8. All about redeeming your 10% Onboard Shop discount (what do you fancy?)
8.1 The 10% discount is a one-time only offer when you become a member of Club Avanti. It will be sent to you in your Welcome email.

 

[Howardh]

The description on every tier says


Yet the T&C says

All looks like another typical Avanti mess-up. Can't log into it, contradictory T+C's...

 

[Huntergreed]

Presumably this works only if you book all tickets through avanti, so if you book through the likes of trainsplit then you’ll not be “loyal enough” to qualify

 

[Sniffingmoose]

I would go further
Why should a tax payer funded railway be offering first class at all let alone a loyalty scheme.

 

[CardiffKid]

I would go further
Why should a tax payer funded railway be offering first class at all let alone a loyalty scheme.

Because people are willing to pay a premium for it and it helps subside the rest of us.

 

[Darandio]

I would go further
Why should a tax payer funded railway be offering first class at all let alone a loyalty scheme.

Strange take. Perhaps you could tell us why they shouldn't be offering first class?

 

[Sniffingmoose]

I have trouble thinking that public money is being used to provide a 1st class service for the advantage of the very few who can afford it. It must make a loss but I have no figures to prove it.

When I used to use Birmingham New Street on a daily basis, I used to watch the 10:50 Virgin service leave for Euston, I noticed the first class was almost empty. I counted the first class passengers on every weekday The average was just 7 passengers. Maybe Avanti need to applauded for bringing in Standard Premium so first class coaches will at least be used. As for the loyalty scheme, you can't beat a national Railcard.

 

[mmh]

Because people are willing to pay a premium for it and it helps subside the rest of us.

The rest of us are not subsidised by nonsense loyalty schemes. We subsidise it.

 

[Statto]

One free first class return ticket for over 21 trips a year isn’t a great perk. Nothing like the old Traveller club!

That's like a chippy offering 20% off, providing you spend £200 first, ok if you travel regally, not so great if you only travel a few times a year.

 

[CardiffKid]

The rest of us are not subsidised by nonsense loyalty schemes. We subsidise it.

First Class fares subsidise standard class fares.

Loyalty schemes seek to encourage custom by rewarding loyalty (look at airmiles or Tesco Clubcard).

Both a separate concepts and neither are difficult to understand.

 

[Trackman]

One free first class return ticket for over 21 trips a year isn’t a great perk. Nothing like the old Traveller club!

I think the old VT Travellers club was free First class travel at weekends IIRC, you had to book online though and have a membership card to show the guard. I think.

 

[87 027]

Why should a tax payer funded railway be offering first class at all let alone a loyalty scheme.

To be fair, in the dying days of British Rail, East Cost had such a reward scheme (Excel) which was continued under GNER and only shuttered when they threw in the towel and National Express took over

 

[station_road]

That's like a chippy offering 20% off, providing you spend £200 first, ok if you travel regally, not so great if you only travel a few times a year.

A loyalty scheme that rewards the best customers? Surely that's the point

When I used to use Birmingham New Street on a daily basis, I used to watch the 10:50 Virgin service leave for Euston, I noticed the first class was almost empty. I counted the first class passengers on every weekday The average was just 7 passengers.

That isn't exactly peak time for business travel, and more people will have got on at International and Coventry

 

[jfollows]

I have just received my invitation to join Club Avanti; if nothing else it gives me 10% off my next ticket. I have booked two times two Standard Premium advance tickets (Wilmslow-London) - two return trips for two people with a Two Together Railcard - through the Avanti Web site this year (February and April) and hadn't previously travelled since early 2020.

 

[The exile]

I have trouble thinking that public money is being used to provide a 1st class service for the advantage of the very few who can afford it. It must make a loss but I have no figures to prove it.

When I used to use Birmingham New Street on a daily basis, I used to watch the 10:50 Virgin service leave for Euston, I noticed the first class was almost empty. I counted the first class passengers on every weekday The average was just 7 passengers. Maybe Avanti need to applauded for bringing in Standard Premium so first class coaches will at least be used. As for the loyalty scheme, you can't beat a national Railcard.

You can be pretty certain that if first class provision made a loss overall (as opposed to on the odd service or part-route) it would soon disappear - as indeed it has over much of the network, where it presumably could not be financially justified)

 

[VideozVideoz]

The description on every tier says


Yet the T&C says

The 10% one-time discount is on the purchase of a return train ticket. Food and drink is 10% off indefinitely. Badly written T&Cs

Oh and incase no one else had noticed, an eligible “trip” has to be at least 75miles. So no BHM-COV or STA-WVH, for example is accepted

 

[Nunners]

The 10% one-time discount is on the purchase of a return train ticket. Food and drink is 10% off indefinitely. Badly written T&Cs

Oh and incase no one else had noticed, an eligible “trip” has to be at least 75miles. So no BHM-COV or STA-WVH, for example is accepted

A 'trip' counts as a single journey, which is useful. WVH-MKC is just over 75 miles, to get an idea of the distance required. I suspect someone will be along shortly to tell us what the cheapest journey is!

Other points of note: You have to buy the ticket online, not at their machines or ticket offices. Does their website sell rangers/rovers at all?
Also see 4.5:

4.5. Please note you can’t earn Qualifying Journeys when travelling on a Super Off Peak and, or any Season ticket for Avanti West Coast services.

 

[GalaxyDog]

You have to buy online, can't be purchased at ticket offices.

Talk about hobbling your loyal ground staff once more.

 

[Huntergreed]

Has anyone succeeded in being invited for this?

I booked several train journeys with Avanti over the past week or so (including one return of quite substantial value) using their website and I’ve not had anything through - is the “qualifying” number set really high?

 

[jfollows]

Has anyone succeeded in being invited for this?

I booked several train journeys with Avanti over the past week or so (including one return of quite substantial value) using their website and I’ve not had anything through - is the “qualifying” number set really high?

My post #21 above

 

[MKB]

I was a Traveller member for many years, from just after its inception until 2021, and I seem to recall I had to give permission for data to be transferred from Virgin to Avanti. I've not been invited, despite that, or maybe because of that!

 

[Jimini]

Has anyone succeeded in being invited for this?

I booked several train journeys with Avanti over the past week or so (including one return of quite substantial value) using their website and I’ve not had anything through - is the “qualifying” number set really high?

Yep, I got my platinum invite emailed over one day last week.

 

[Huntergreed]

I wonder what the criteria is, I’ll keep booking with them and hope for the best!