What's going on with Avanti?

[kenthomson]

I had thought Avanti were a top company, but they're seeming a bit rickety?

I just tried to book a return journey Glasgow Central to Birmingham International. Their app was very slow and returned errors twice, so I went to the website on my computer. This was also extremely slow. I had errors twice when trying to pay with Apple Pay (which usually works great for me) so I entered a card manually. This seemed to get to the final hurdle but then kicked me back to the main page. I received no e-mail confirmation so, you'll be glad to hear, I booked using this site.

Checking my bank account shows two pending charges from Avanti. I've reported via Customer Service e-mail. Noting that their X/Twitter feed hasn't been updated since Christmas, I'm not expecting this to go smoothly or swiftly.

 

[Bletchleyite]

You have correctly discovered that Avanti's website is garbage. It's best just not to use it. It has always been so.

Most likely the preauthorisations will just disappear off your bank account when they time out, usually a few days but could be a few weeks. If you didn't receive a confirmation of booking they are very unlikely to bill. But equally it's unlikely your bank will be able to do much about them.

With regard to X they are still replying there but it's unlikely they will be able to do much about it either bar log that there's a problem.

 

[Vexed]

Their X account is active for replying to people, but they delete disruption posts once the disruption is over so the account won't look active unless you look under the replies tab.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Feb 2026 ==

It's not just you, this was an hour ago.

https://x.com/i/status/2026268547387719774

@AvantiWestCoast is your website down?

Just tried to purchase tickets on my iPhone and also desktop but it's not working and error message comes up.

Hi Pierce, thank you for your message and for letting us know. I've tried myself and it has led me to journey information after a few minutes, but it is taking longer than usual so I apologise. I've raised this with our web team to be looked into as soon as possible. - Beth

 

[kenthomson]

Their X account is active for replying to people, but they delete disruption posts once the disruption is over so the account won't look active unless you look under the replies tab.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Feb 2026 ==

It's not just you, this was an hour ago.

https://x.com/i/status/2026268547387719774

Interesting! In fairness, they have already responded to my e-mail and say the've refunded the booking, which has never appeared on my account. The remaining two pending transactions are the Apple Pay ones, so I expect they will expire as mentioned above.

Right, off to book the hotel for the trip, let's hope that's more straightforward!