East Coast Rewards to close as Stagecoach wins franchise

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• James67 says:

  29 Nov29 November 06:39

  Fares are of more concern to me than rewards. Used west coast line between GLC or CAR and EUS about every 2 months for last 7 years. Cannot recall ever receiving a promotion; advance tickets were best I could ever do. By comparison East Coast run generous promotions on their own and via third parties very frequently. Apart from all that I now expect to see unregulated fares between Scotland and NE England and London skyrocket.

• Cheshire Pete says:

  29 Nov29 November 06:44

  I hope the Virgin Traveller reward scheme is extended to this franchise. Been a member for over 10 years on West coast franchise. Basically it blows away this old scheme anyway. 12 months of Free First Class return travel for 2 people from Friday to Monday each week. Cost of attaining the card is around £800 if you buy the right tickets to qualify! It has always been Virgin Trains best kept secret….

  • Smid says:

    15 Dec15 December 10:37

    I agree, East Coast is in no way the best frequent traveller reward scheme. The Virgin Traveller one is, so much so I’d consider buying 800 quid of tickets to nowhere and binning them to requalify. It has become secretive about requalification, but my last requalification was during the time Virgin lost the franchise and got it back, and they gave me 18 months of membership as a reward….

    • Rob says:

      15 Dec15 December 12:46

      As you say, with no stated criteria for membership these days it is difficult to rank it. And it only works for a small subset, ie people who want to travel to/from Manchester / Birmingham / London at weekends, for free.

      I do have a friend who did buy tickets with no intention of using them, as he travelled up to Wigan to watch the football 21 times a year.

      • Smid says:

        15 Dec15 December 13:39

        Well, like any of these reward schemes, you have to be able to use those flights, those trains (such as East Coast in that case, which is no good to me), so you’re always going to have to work on a limited subset (But a london to Birmingham/ Manchester/ Carlisle/ Glasgow/ Edinburgh first class for 2 per weekend has a lot of value if on the route).

        The benefits are a free ticket first class return for up to 2 adults, with additional children at 10 pounds a time, all day Friday to Monday noon. Has to include an overnight stay (recent addition). Every weekend.

        I can state the qualifying criteria:

        Buy 16 single qualifying tickets over a period of three months.

        These are:

        First class anytime return over 100 pounds (counts as 2 tickets).
        First class anytime single over 50 pounds.
        Advance First Class tickets over 70 pounds.

        Book using the virgin trains website. Travel on virgin train routes (so if going further, maybe best split out the ticket).

        In reality those limits are kind of funny to meet, you’ll struggle to find anytime single tickets that low and sometimes pick a more expensive train to get the advance ticket over 70 quid.

        What has changed since I first started being a member (I was first a member 2011) is the Two Together railcard, which gets 1/3rd off any two tickets when bought together. This can actually cut a huge chunk off the fare, and bring the higher fare ones close to the qualifying criteria. And both of those tickets count towards the qualification. The discounted amount has to be over the limits above there.

• rob says:

  29 Nov29 November 06:56

  I cashed in my East coast rewards yesterday. 2 free 1st class tickets from Doncaster to Edinburgh

• Richard says:

  29 Nov29 November 07:01

  I use the East coast line often, to go to both Newcastle and Edinburgh for work. Under public ownership it has not only been good value, but also a very pleasant service. I regard it currently as the best rail service in the UK. My heart rather sank when I read the news of the franchise award, no doubt the first thing that will happen is the prices go up. Plus I have a lot of points to cash in quickly – I suspect a few family trips to the Scottish cousins are on the cards.

• Frenske says:

  29 Nov29 November 07:07

  The highest bidder won and now they need to milk the customers for their pounds. At the same time the government tells us that this consortium will provide best value for customers but I am sure they mean tax payers. Until trains getting emptier and the tax payers need to foot the bill to keep it going. In NL they tried to privatize railways but saw what poor value it gave in UK and NL gov made a wise U-turn. A good coherent value-for-money infrastructure is important for economy.

• Paul says:

  29 Nov29 November 07:32

  Pity that the rewards programme is being closed however pretty shocking that it is being privatised again. Quite simply rail travel in the UZk is not fit for purpose and need to be fully nationalised and perhaps run by Dbahn. On behalf of the government.

  • andystock says:

    29 Nov29 November 07:42

    Pauls comment about D Bahn – well D Bahn already operate Chiltern and London Overground who are always at the top of the performance tables

    • Chris C says:

      29 Nov29 November 12:25

      But the London Overground operation is a management contract not a franchise.

      Fares are set by TFL

• andystock says:

  29 Nov29 November 07:38

  At least flying we now have BA, easyjet, ryanair and flybe on the London to Scotland route so flying will become cheaper than using the train as Fares go up on the rails with this decision.

  Remember that avios availability is usually never usually a problem on the London to Scotland routes.

  Raffles comment about South West Trains reminds me of the disaster that was first capital connect! This new lot – Thameslink Great Northern are making a complete mess of the Thameslink route, major problems every other day. Not doing to bad on the Great Northern routes out of kings cross, my supply of delay repay vouchers has dried up

• Scott says:

  29 Nov29 November 08:16

  Typical that I had a load of rail travel planned in March. Just a few points short of a first class reward as well.

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