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MSE News: Season ticket holders lose out as Virgin overhauls East Coast's loyalty sch
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Former_MSE_Helen
Posts: 2,382 Forumite
Thousands of East Coast rail season ticket holders can no longer earn points after an overhaul of its loyalty scheme...
Read the full story:
Season ticket holders lose out as Virgin overhauls East Coast's loyalty scheme
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Season ticket holders lose out as Virgin overhauls East Coast's loyalty scheme
Click reply below to discuss. If you haven’t already, join the forum to reply. If you aren’t sure how it all works, read our New to Forum? Intro Guide.
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Comments
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As with most changes to such schemes, this one is much less attractive than the one it replaces - as is the operator, Virgin.
The 50 point First Class Lounge redemption was a useful way of using a relatively small number of points, but that doesn't seem to exist any more.
Political messing around with the railways by the Conservatives (as always, putting themselves and their pals ahead of the country and its people) has led to a highly profitable and very popular public sector operation on East Coast (after two failed private ones) being sold off yet again to the private sector.
So the country loses the profits it was getting from East Coast, and gains a private operator which will carry on for just as long as it can screw the maximum out of its customers to bolster the profits it will hand over to its shareholders.
Progress!0 -
Yep, privitisation at its finest, and us mugs pay for itI refer to my byline below ...
Ad hominem
An attack upon an opponent in order to discredit their arguement or opinion. Ad hominems are used by immature and/or unintelligent people because they are unable to counter their opponent using logic and intelligence.0 -
DOR was never going to run it forever.0
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No reason why it shouldn't have done. It operated efficiently, made good profits for the government and was well liked by its customers.DOR was never going to run it forever.
Only political considerations (the Tories hating anything run by the public sector - including the NHS - and loving the private sector, even when two previous private franchises on the East Coast Main Line have failed) stopped it.
Now we're all prey to the usual Virgin rip-off pricing.0 -
I use west coast and signed up for virgin points. I also pay for the tickets on virgin CC. Points build up quickly and you can convert points into holiday vouchers not just flights, we did that this year and got a few hundred quid off a holiday
They provide good service on west coast, better than old service. hope the service is ok for you guys0 -
Why not get the government to run absolutely everything using that logic? Why should companies profit from selling food but not running trains? Food is essential for life, trains aren't.0
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No reason why it shouldn't have done. It operated efficiently, made good profits for the government and was well liked by its customers.
Only political considerations (the Tories hating anything run by the public sector - including the NHS - and loving the private sector, even when two previous private franchises on the East Coast Main Line have failed) stopped it.
Now we're all prey to the usual Virgin rip-off pricing.
Except the Tories don't hate the nhs (what a stupid thing to say) and despite the populist mantra from Labour, I didn't see them renationalising the railways during their time in government - nor is it a pledge for their proposed government last time I checked.0 -
Renationalisation, whilst it would be an excellent thing for the railways and the country, would be just too expensive now.callum9999 wrote: »Except the Tories don't hate the nhs (what a stupid thing to say) and despite the populist mantra from Labour, I didn't see them renationalising the railways during their time in government - nor is it a pledge for their proposed government last time I checked.
The Conservatives sold off most of the family silver, including the railways, BT, water, gas, electricity etc (look how much their gas and electricity sell-offs are costing us all now!) - the prospect of finding the sot of money needed to buy it back again now is zero.
They also wasted all the North Sea gas and oil revenues on lower taxes to get re-elected, instead of taking the sensible line that Norway took, and is still profiting from.
Then there are all the council houses sold off at a fraction of their true worth to the nation - look at all the problems that's causing now, and how much it's costing.
Labour financial mismanagement - love that lie that the Tories have been peddling on the basis that if you say it enough times people believe it! What about all the Tory mismanagement?0 -
Renationalisation, whilst it would be an excellent thing for the railways and the country, would be just too expensive now.
The Conservatives sold off most of the family silver, including the railways, BT, water, gas, electricity etc (look how much their gas and electricity sell-offs are costing us all now!) - the prospect of finding the sot of money needed to buy it back again now is zero.
If you believe that renationalisation would improve the way things are run then you need to up your dose of pills. There is plenty wrong with, for example, the railways. One example is the over complex ticketing regime but many more people use the railways than did 20 30 or 40 years ago, you can get cheap tickets if you are organised to do it in advance and/or qualify for a discount card. Of course Network Rail which looks after the infrastructure is a Government Company and its recent efforts at Kings Cross, Finsbury Park, London Bridge and Paddington are nothing much to write home about.0 -
Of course many more people are using the railways - but that would have happened under public ownership, with proper investment, just as readily.If you believe that renationalisation would improve the way things are run then you need to up your dose of pills. There is plenty wrong with, for example, the railways. One example is the over complex ticketing regime but many more people use the railways than did 20 30 or 40 years ago, you can get cheap tickets if you are organised to do it in advance and/or qualify for a discount card. Of course Network Rail which looks after the infrastructure is a Government Company and its recent efforts at Kings Cross, Finsbury Park, London Bridge and Paddington are nothing much to write home about.
And without the ridiculous fares complexity, too, which results in anyone wanting just to travel on the day, without pre-booking, having to pay getting on for, and in some cases exceeding, the price of the air fare.0
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