End of Virgin franchise and Megabus

[CheapAndNerdy]

Both Megabus and Virgin have significant Stagecoach ownership. Once First take over I wonder if the arrangement will continue beyond any existing contractual obligations?

 

[Deerfold]

Both Megabus and Virgin have significant Stagecoach ownership. Once First take over I wonder if the arrangement will continue beyond any existing contractual obligations?

Do you mean "Will they continue selling megatrain tickets for the West Coast line"?

If so, I suspect not.

 

[OwlMan]

When Arriva took over Cross Country all Megatrain tickets were immediately discontinued.
I imagine the same will happen to West Coast.

Peter

 

[CheapAndNerdy]

Do you mean "Will they continue selling megatrain tickets for the West Coast line"?

If so, I suspect not.

You have correctly interpreted my flowery language . Sadly, I concur with your prognostication.

 

[Smethwickian]

Agreed - once the Stagecoach link to the WCML is gone, there's no way Megabus can offer such tickets.

No more trips from Birmingham to Edinburgh for £2, £5 or £7 each way. Shame.

 

[Deerfold]

Agreed - once the Stagecoach link to the WCML is gone, there's no way Megabus can offer such tickets.

No more trips from Birmingham to Edinburgh for £2, £5 or £7 each way. Shame.

Except by Megabus perhaps - I wonder if they will expand a little along West Coast routes?

Unless we may get GreyhoundTrain setting up (nah, that'd be firstbus showing a bit of innovation).

 

[LexyBoy]

I expect First will introduce cheap Advance tickets where Megatrain previously offered tickets. No reason to introduce a third party (owned by a competitor obviously) when there's a perfectly good mechanism to offer such tickets already in place.

Once First take over I wonder if the arrangement will continue beyond any existing contractual obligations?

I don't think there will be any contractual obligations - surely any contract Megatrain has would be with West Coast Trains Limited. If Megatrain sell tickets for travel beyond the changeover date then as we have seen they have no contractual obligation to provide travel to the customer.

 

[185]

Both Megabus and Virgin have significant Stagecoach ownership. Once First take over I wonder if the arrangement will continue beyond any existing contractual obligations?

Shouldn't make much difference. Greedy Virgin cancelled enough Megatrain bookings whilst actually operating the franchise, wanting only the big fares.

 

[pemma]

Shouldn't make much difference. Greedy Virgin cancelled enough Megatrain bookings whilst actually operating the franchise, wanting only the big fares.

Did Virgin cancel Megatrain bookings as well? I only heard about SWT doing it before the Olympics.

 

[Deerfold]

Shouldn't make much difference. Greedy Virgin cancelled enough Megatrain bookings whilst actually operating the franchise, wanting only the big fares.

Were there a number of these?

 

[185]

Virgin Trains Megatrain Cancellations, June 2012:

Your experience with Megatrain would appear to be their common business practice.

Megatrain did the same with me with a ticket I booked from London to Liverpool for travel on 4 June 2012. I booked the ticket as soon as they went on sale, some 45 days aheadof departure. Then, about 2 weeks before I was due to travel, I got an email telling me that my booking had been cancelled as they had been not been allocated any seats on that particular Virgin service and had therefore offered them for sale in error.

I was told to make alternative arrangements at my own expense and that my payment and booking fee would be refunded back onto my debit card. So far, I have only had the payment refunded and am still waiting for the booking fee.

Due to the very short time span involved, making alternative arrangements cost me far more than what it would have done had I never booked with Megatrain in the first place. It appear that they also have a deliberate policy of ignoring follow up email enquiries.

One of the people I noticed on here. There were others on Facebook.