VTEC Weekend First price confusion

[SaveECRewards]

This! The Virgin 'style' was never really for me but I was willing to put up with it (with a small amount of grumbling ) but things have just started to feel like they're falling apart. Then it becomes very hard to swallow all the guff they produce.

One member of staff I spoke to a few weeks ago said she thought it was worse now than under NXEC mostly because she felt the VTEC way patronising. Everyone knew NXEC was cutting costs, VTEC claim to be the best but are failing to deliver.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The first class hosts I was chatting to a month ago said the same. Their opinion was that NXEC management cared but we're fighting a losing battle, but VTEC management just don't care.

I feel it's worse than under NXEC if I'm honest.

 

[SaveECRewards]

The first class hosts I was chatting to a month ago said the same. Their opinion was that NXEC management cared but we're fighting a losing battle, but VTEC management just don't care.

I feel it's worse than under NXEC if I'm honest.

I think VTEC is still ahead of NXEC but I think expectations management helps. NXEC never kept going on about how awesome they were. I think VTEC are guilty of over promising and under delivering.

One thing I did like that NXEC did was introduce chefs on some Sunday evening trains. This lasted until 2011 when EC went complimentary.

On a Sunday evening you could buy a hot meal from the 'first class at seat' menu on services that had that. Having the option of buying a £10 chef prepared hot meal on the train and also being able to buy anything else from the buffet at seat, beats the replacement complimentary service of a sandwich in a box.

 

[Merseysider]

I had a VTEC delay repay wrongly refused for a journey Berwick-Liverpool a couple months back. They forwarded the case to West Coast, saying I hadn't travelled with VTEC, despite the tickets clearly showing VTEC in the route field :roll:

Took them two months to sort out and I eventually got a tenner more off them.

It just stank of incompetence. Definitely going downhill.

 

[ainsworth74]

It just stank of incompetence. Definitely going downhill.

You know I was pleased when customer service was taken in house from Plymouth. But I really do kinda miss those days now...

 

[Segedunum]

You know I was pleased when customer service was taken in house from Plymouth. But I really do kinda miss those days now...

Only thing that's good about in house is that you get the odd "ooh that's just down from me!" when you give your address over the phone to them [emoji38] (I live about 15 minutes drive from Cramlington where they're based)

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[Wallsendmag]

One of the issues causing the confusion is the fact that you can no longer buy an upgrade in advance (though I can't recall which iteration of East Coast changed that), so the prices have been removed from the Fares Database, making it harder to check which upgrade applies to a given flow.

GNER I think


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[Wallsendmag]

Only thing that's good about in house is that you get the odd "ooh that's just down from me!" when you give your address over the phone to them [emoji38] (I live about 15 minutes drive from Cramlington where they're based)

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Or even Gosforth


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[Segedunum]

Or even Gosforth


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That'd make more sense.
I swear the freepost address is for Cramlington, that'll be what I'm thinking of!

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[Wallsendmag]

All they have to do to get the right price is check NRE or even the info on our site.


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[Sprinter153]

Because of the way society uses social media for many people it is the first port of call for questions that would have previously been answered over the phone or at a ticket office. That means that while the kiddish attitude is fine(even if I hate it) they have to get the questions right - unfortunately there are too many cases where they are getting, sometimes very simple queries, wrong.

The people themselves are good but training needs to improve

I saw one recently where a train was severely delayed and a customer asked them what their options for a connection to Hull were. They were told they needed to contact Northern because 'we can't help'. How hard is it to do a quick journey enquiry? It's like me telling a customer on my train that I can't give them connection information from Swansea to West Wales and they'll need to phone ATW.

Unfortunately a lot of the customers seem to lap up the 'carefree' - perhaps it actually is care free - attitude. Multiple times I've been told how much better the trains and service are on 'Virgin'. I see it as all mouth and no trousers though.

 

[SaveECRewards]

From yesterday, another time when they say £25 when it's £15

 

[Deerfold]

More conflicting information between the Twitter feed and the website:

https://twitter.com/deerfold/status/917826428539895808

 

[SaveECRewards]

They did it today! Someone asking for the weekend first price Peterborough - Doncaster and they said £25.
That's particularly bad as even London - Donny is £15.

Problem is if the guard charges them the wrong fare they won't realise they've been overcharged, but if they know the right fare then they can query it and the guard can then charge the right amount