eurolines/National Express excessively late - help please

bob_man_uk

Hi all,

On Monday I made a very long journey to Frankfurt, Germany for a job interview. I had arranged to travel by coach as it was by far the cheapest, ive used eurolines before and theres never been a problem, but i shall explain.

I had booked a coach from Derby to London, this coach was slightly delayed due to the M1, this is understandable and did not seriously impact on the 5 hour wait i had for my London-Frankfurt Connection. I waited around and eventually cought the Frankfurt Coach without a problem. The problems arrose when the Police grounded the coach about 1 hour away from Frankfurt, where a lot of fuss was being made over the tachographs, one of the returning German students said they had been driving for longer than they should have been, hence the grounding, we arrived at 2pm when we were supposed to arrive at 11:45am this made me almost miss my job interview and the agency dealing with hiring the staff had to pick me up and take me to where the interview was taking place.

They also rushed me back to the bus stop for 4pm (4pm was the ONLY coach service that would have gotten me back to the UK, so i had to insist on making it to the coach stop on time) I cought the coach and fell asleep on the almost empty coach, we eventually arrive in Dunkirk and.... thanks to the way the passport checking was done, spent the best part of 2 hours checking in each coach load of people, we borded the ferry at 4am, 2 hour crossing and thanks to the coach driver getting lost ended up back at victoria coach station at 9am, half an hour after my 8:30am connection had left the station, i was supposed to arrive at 5:45am

a whole 2 and 3/4 hours late, there was no announcements as far as i could tell the coach driver could speak english (or at least he could swear in it) so what course of action should i take with this?

If i complain to their customer serivce people would i just get the generic response of "we cant be held responsible..." malarky we always get with late coaches, and if i do is there anything i can use to backup my argument?

thanks if anyone has any advice.

McKneff

!!!!!! happens, I would just move on mate. Not worth getting stressed about.

Did you get the job.

bob_man_uk

McKneff wrote: »

!!!!!! happens, I would just move on mate. Not worth getting stressed about.

Did you get the job.

Even if they are consistantly poor and unreliable? What if I had missed the interview? I would be back on the coach and it would be a wasted journey. In fact if it wasn't for the agency I would have missed the interview altogether and consuffering I missed my connecting bus even though I had left more than enough time to allow for late buses. I intend to make a complaint regardless so help with how to argue would be nice. Thanks

McKneff

Sorry but the point is you didnt miss the interview did you.

Argue, why would you want to argue, make your complaint by all means
then move on.

They arent consistently poor, they are usually pretty good, but some of the things that happened wasnt their fault, surely.
Good luck anyway, you'll probably get a lot further making a polite complaint.

edit, i have reread your post, and most of the problems where caused by outside influences. If you take all those out what are you left with = lack of information from the driver and he got lost as far as i can see.

Traffic, police, passport control, a student who was maybe lying or mistaken, all out of Eurolines control

vikingaero

2 & 3/4 hours late on such a long journey isn't excessive given so many other factors.

Takoda

Coaches are cheap. The service is sometimes dodgy. Use more reliable transport if that is an important factor for you.

TBH if I'd had an interview for a job I wanted abroad I'd have gone the day before and stayed over to make sure I got there. A few extra pounds but no stress.

HTH

bob_man_uk

what exactly is a reliable service?

ryanair? easyjet? or am i expected to fork out the best part of £1000 for business class BA flights? what if i had paid for a flight, the plane was delayed and i end up stuck in another country because i missed my transfer? or god forbid i get to a country and the ash cloud means i cant leave it, not even to get home? how reliable is flying then?

im sorry but under the circumstances i would rather not be stuck somewhere with as little money as i had and end up making myself even more ill.

our ideas of cheap are severly different i feel, as the amount i paid for the whole journey may not be that of a first class journey i still feel it should have some level of service and at some point there should some level of accountability.

but if you dont agree with me then i will accept that fact, if any ones interested i might respond when i get a reply from them.

Its not like i would expect that much from them, an appology would be acceptable, maybe a discount on my next journey (which i will definitely be making if i get the job) would be very nice too.

I just feel like im being told off for making a cheap journey... last time i ask for advice from people on here.

vikingaero

bob_man_uk wrote: »

what exactly is a reliable service?

ryanair? easyjet? or am i expected to fork out the best part of £1000 for business class BA flights? what if i had paid for a flight, the plane was delayed and i end up stuck in another country because i missed my transfer? or god forbid i get to a country and the ash cloud means i cant leave it, not even to get home? how reliable is flying then?

im sorry but under the circumstances i would rather not be stuck somewhere with as little money as i had and end up making myself even more ill.

our ideas of cheap are severly different i feel, as the amount i paid for the whole journey may not be that of a first class journey i still feel it should have some level of service and at some point there should some level of accountability.

but if you dont agree with me then i will accept that fact, if any ones interested i might respond when i get a reply from them.

Its not like i would expect that much from them, an appology would be acceptable, maybe a discount on my next journey (which i will definitely be making if i get the job) would be very nice too.

I just feel like im being told off for making a cheap journey... last time i ask for advice from people on here.

What do you want us to say Bob? You want us to agree with you? The fact is that if the journey was really that important then travelling the day before and staying in a cheap and slummy B&B would have been the better option.

You should complain as you have stated and I'd hope that you would get at least a complimentary journey.

bob_man_uk

vikingaero wrote: »

What do you want us to say Bob? You want us to agree with you? The fact is that if the journey was really that important then travelling the day before and staying in a cheap and slummy B&B would have been the better option.

You should complain as you have stated and I'd hope that you would get at least a complimentary journey.

i dont know maybe i assumed at least people would be sympathetic to my problem and at least understand, not slag me off for not having money, more fool me eh? oh and i did look for a cheap and crappy b&b on top of other costs... not feasable im afraid!

McKneff

We are not unsympathetic but you did go over the top a bit blaming Eurolines for more than they were actually to blame for.

Have you actually re-read your original post.

Hope you get the job after all that,

bob_man_uk

if you say so. tbh ive had enough of it already.

thanks for the help.