It doesn't overly help that Avanti appear to be doing absolutely no promotion of it whatsoever. It's almost like it's a franchise commitment they regret agreeing and want it to fail.
Absolutely.
I've only recently started travelling again and the first time I caught a down train from Milton Keynes it was an 11 car Pendo.. The station announcement said something on the lines of 'Unreserved seats are in --- ---- and Coach G in First Class'; this puzzled me, because that was, I thought, a Premium Standard coach. I wrongly jumped to the conclusion that either S.P.. didn't apply to that train (it was an early Manchester) or it had been abandoned, so I got in. Almost straight away, I was asked by a steward whether I had a ticket that included 'the food and drink offer' or travel only. Realising that it was Standard Premium I just moved forward to J but it does seem muddled thinking. It did seem that, if I had stayed, I would have had coffee, though.
The station announcements always seem to make that odd announcement about 'delicious hot and cold snacks' in Coach C (never heard on any other T.O.C. - maybe their snacks aren't delicious...) but remain silent about S.P.. There's no announcements about it in First, either - obviously it's of no relevance but usually all the announcements seem to be broadcast throughout the train - including, for instance, the Shop ones which similarly aren't relevant in first when there's the 'food offer'.
