I travel once a week between Bristol and London for work. I’ve been doing this for more than three years and, because of its much lower prices than Great Western’s train service, use National Express coaches every week. I was delighted when, early in 2015, National Express began advertising a deal whereby on certain routes, including Bristol-London, customers would get a free journey for every 10 booked. However, my experience after numerous attempts to book these free journeys – delivered in the form of a promotional code by email – has been utter failure.
When I enter the code, an error message comes up. I have been in touch with National Express by both phone and email. On one occasion staff booked the free trip for me, but on other occasions I’ve had no help whatsoever. The system clearly doesn’t work and, despite my contact with the company, I have seen no indication of any attempt to resolve it. My last phone conversation met with a promise that it would get back to me. It didn’t.
By now, doing the Bristol-London return journey once a week as I do, I should have saved a small fortune. Instead, I’ve spent a lot of time trying and failing to claim my free journeys, and even though it’s clearly a shambles it is still advertising this deal on the website. You printed a letter about this same issue on 6 July 2015. In its response, National Express said the problem was due to an “unusual technical glitch” that had been resolved. It isn’t unusual. It’s the norm. More than a year later it still hasn’t been resolved. SB, Bristol
National Express said it has handed out thousands of free journeys under this offer without an issue. It described this as a rare instance and apologised for the frustration this has caused you. It is talking to you direct to try to resolve it and said in a statement: “We are sorry for the inconvenience caused to this customer and we are liaising with them directly to resolve the issue. The problem was caused by a rare system fault.”
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