Travelling by National Express to UK Airport

travellerboy

Be aware that National Express have changed their rules with regard to changing your coach ticket to an earlier coach if your plane arrives earlier. In the past you could just pay £5/pp and catch the earlier coach, now they have added a "price difference charge" which recently meant that if we wanted to change to the earlier coach it would have cost us over £24/pp.

What we do now - we choose the cheapest fare on the outbound and inbound journey on the day and add their FLEX charge which is £5/pp/ew. On many routes later journeys are significantly cheaper than the one you really want. No problem pay for the cheapest then take your entitlement to change the journey time, free of charge.

We recently booked a return ticket to the airport choosing the cheapest fare on both days. Then changed the outbound journey the following day to our preferred time which would have been £12/pp more, but was free due to Flex. On our return we went to the ticket desk at Heathrow and changed our return time to the next coach again free of charge saving over £24/pp.

Do your maths and save a fortune also you gain the flexibility to change coaches when plans go adrift at no added cost.

dj1471

I've always found National Express to be flexible when flying to and from Heathrow, just speak nicely to the driver of the earlier/later coach you want to take and so long as seats are available it's no problem - never had an issue getting a seat and never a mention of extra fees.

mickey234

dj1471 wrote: »

I've always found National Express to be flexible when flying to and from Heathrow, just speak nicely to the driver of the earlier/later coach you want to take and so long as seats are available it's no problem - never had an issue getting a seat and never a mention of extra fees.

I would suggest you are living in lala land if you expect the National Express driver is going to risk his job by doing you a favour. Best of luck in your future travels but don't be too disappointed when you are left stranded.

dj1471

mickey234 wrote: »

I would suggest you are living in lala land if you expect the National Express driver is going to risk his job by doing you a favour. Best of luck in your future travels but don't be too disappointed when you are left stranded.

Erm OK, thanks. But as stated I've done that several times without issue.

jackieblack

dj1471 wrote: »

Erm OK, thanks. But as stated I've done that several times without issue.

Maybe you've been lucky so far, but I've seen people turned away several times at Heathrow because their ticket was for an earlier coach which they had missed and because they hadn't paid for the flex option they were told that they would need to buy a new ticket.
Not worth the risk for the sake of a fiver IMO.

PompeyPete

I agree with #3 and #5.

Also with the protracted misery of Southern Rail strikes, National Express are making the most of it by hiking their fares.