Avanti West Coast launches its Club Avanti loyalty scheme – here’s how it works

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• Panda Mick says:

  8 Sep8 September 08:49

  The only good thing about Avanti is how apalling they are: I’ve done really well out of them from a compensation perspective. Every journey I’ve had this year has resulted in comp.

  I think it also underlines just how incompetent the govt are in taking away a franchise from a company that delivered a decent service and gave it to a bunch of complete muppets.

  • Amo says:

    8 Sep8 September 09:04

    I recently travelled between London and Manchester and seats were double/triple booked for the same seat. Every carriage full, with passengers unable to sit in seats they’d booked because another passenger also had a ticket with the same seat number – absolute carnage. The driver made an announcement about claiming a partial refund but I couldn’t find anything on their website, any ideas?

    • Andrew says:

      8 Sep8 September 09:45

      I wouldn’t waste your time. On a recent first class journey there was no food or drink available. The train manager apologised and said we’d be able to claim compensation for the service being declassified. Avanti customer service completely denied any claim saying that I’d gotten a first class seat and food and drink are complimentary so they don’t have to provide them

      • Rob says:

        8 Sep8 September 09:53

        Sounds like BA Club Europe excuses when they sell your middle seat and/or don’t load food.

        • Save East Coast Rewards says:

          8 Sep8 September 10:00

          It’s worse now Avanti have launched their premium economy which is just a first class seat without the catering. So surely if there’s no catering in first class you should get a refund to the premium economy level.

          At least in CE you get a middle seat block.

          To be fair though every time BA have messed up they’ve thrown a bunch of Avios my way. For example when my special meal wasn’t loaded I got Avios, when a flight EDI-LCY didn’t have the full catering I got Avios, when the Aspire lounge wasn’t open in NCL I got Avios. On the LHR flight the IFL insisted on submitting a request for Avios for me, on the LCY flight the crew made an announcement encouraging people to submit a complaint.

      • MKB says:

        8 Sep8 September 10:28

        You should fight that. If you didn’t get food and drink, then you were effectively downgraded to Standard Premium. You should insist on the difference in fare between the two being refunded.

        • acewoking says:

          8 Sep8 September 18:52

          You still got the lounge and all its goodies

  • Save East Coast Rewards says:

    8 Sep8 September 09:52

    In theory Avanti shouldn’t have been worse than Virgin who had the previous franchise, they even retained the Virgin Trains MD to run it (he has now recently quit due to how disastrous this year has been). It’s hard to imagine Virgin letting things get this bad but it was the same management team and the shortage of drivers would have the same result.

• Simon says:

  8 Sep8 September 09:06

  No way to run a railroad?

• ken says:

  8 Sep8 September 09:27

  It always beggars belief that train operators can’t recruit enough drivers.
  How hard can it be to find people willing to earn £60k plus once you are doing the Intercity routes in places like Crewe, Liverpool, Carlisle, Glasgow.

  Less than 7% of drivers are women (as of 2019). No doubt Avanti will blame the unions again.

  There’s only 3 1/2 years to go before abolition of the West Coast franshise.

  Imagine spending management time developing a loyalty scheme for such a short period when you can’t even run trains.

  • Save East Coast Rewards says:

    8 Sep8 September 10:14

    I’m guessing that, like LNER, they have a loyalty department as they used to have a scheme called Traveller from the Virgin Trains days (any idea what happened to that?)

    I imagine that this has been under development for a while

  • P Russell says:

    8 Sep8 September 11:09

    Ken,it’s not that they can’t attract enough people to become drivers,they are inundated every time they advertise vacancies.
    The issue is that like most other train companies,they are trying to run the service with as few drivers as possible due to the costs of recruitment and training people.
    So when drivers refuse to work overtime on what should be their days off….the entire service collapses. It’s been like this for years.

• NigelthePensioner says:

  8 Sep8 September 10:11

  Avanti are completely useless as everyone agrees. Their prices are double what Virgin used to charge. Their reliability is atrocious and the provision of just one train an hour between Birmingham and Euston is a joke! There are, in theory, three trains worth of passengers crammed onto one train and then, WHEN (not if) your return train from Euston is cancelled, you will have 6 trains worth of passengers crammed on to one train! However, as their service is so appalling, no one books Avanti meaning that if you have all the time in the world and do decide to take the risk, you have a carriage to yourself in steerage with as much room therefore as in first! Don’t be paying £365 return for a first return.
  The sooner they have the route taken off them the better. Virgin’s wine in first was appalling but the breakfast was nice and most of the trains were on time AND a two together railcard got you 2 first returns at sensible times for £90. Now, you pay that and some for steerage!!

• Rich_A says:

  8 Sep8 September 10:16

  If your journey is under 75 miles, you might look at booking a longer ticket and travelling short – only if you have an Anytime or Off-Peak ticket, can’t do it with an Advance.

  That said I don’;t think I would be investing anything in an underwhelming scheme that might become toast before you get to benefit.

• Matarredondaaa says:

  8 Sep8 September 10:20

  Many rail franchises rely ‘upon the good will of the drivers’ to run Saturday and Sunday trains
  This seems an utterly ridiculous way to run a railway.
  It, I can only assume is a means to control costs but, having to pay overtime rates and be totally dependent upon drivers being prepared to work overtime is beyond me.

  • Rich_A says:

    8 Sep8 September 10:25

    It’s a system that has been around forever. It kind of works both ways. Nobody is contracted to work Sunday, but it’s expected that somebody always will, because the overtime is very nice thank you very much.

    But because there’s no contract, either side can pull the plug for Sunday working without too much difficulty. The workers if they want to be difficult; the railway if they want to turn the screw.

  • John says:

    8 Sep8 September 17:18

    The NHS relies on the goodwill of medical staff in a similar way. Except that you can’t just say no thanks and go home when someone is sick and your shift is over.

• TimM says:

  8 Sep8 September 10:25

  I am reminded of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy when we discover that the human race is descended not from the apes but from another planet’s rejects: hairdressers, telephone sanitisers, and loyalty scheme experts. They had endless meetings to try to create ‘the wheel’ but could not decide what colour it should be. Step forward Avanti. We have a loyalty scheme but not a functioning railway.

• J P Joule says:

  8 Sep8 September 10:29

  Travelled on Monday Euston Manchester – standard class = cattle class. How does Avanti intend to keep its licence?
  Toilet door did not close, no wifi – drinks needed cash. Folks in every doorway.
  I made the error of having tickets printed a couple of weeks before and Avanti would not permit me to rebook seats.

  Meghan and Harry travelled to Manchester by train on Monday – I expect they didnt have the same problems as my wife and I experienced.

  How on earth does Avanti WC expect to keep its licence?

  • Rich_A says:

    8 Sep8 September 13:17

    By contrast, I had 4 Avanti legs last week – first time on WCML in ages – and they were absolutely fine.

    All on time, wifi worked, not crowded, Advance fares were cheap as chips the day before. Only problem was a shortage of sockets.

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