flixbus.it

Disappointed

I have been a user of the flixbus service for two years now. Using their bus between Ghent en London at an almost monthly basis. I have to say that in recent times I have been incredibly disappointed with the service. Firstly the ticket prices have gone up an extortionate amount. I used to be able to get a single ticket, being booked a month or so in advance for £15. Now the cheapest I tend to be able to find is £35 and if I am lucky £27. Despite their rise in ticket prices the problems I seem to be experiencing with the company have also gone up. For example I was on a bus yesterday leaving at 9am from London meaning that I should arrive in Ghent by 3pm. We enden up being delayed at the border for around 6 hours. Due to malfunctions of the bus we also had to stop along the motorway countless times to cool down the overheated engine. This resulted in me arriving in Ghent at 12.00am. 9 hours later than what I had planned for. Luckily for me I only needed to get to Ghent which is the first stop on a route that rides all the way to Cologne. There were people on that bus that still needed to get connecting routes which they had already missed by a long haul. At this point no one was able to contact customer services, I was held on the line for half an hour before I gave up considering my credit. Even the bus driver himself was trying to contact the Flixbus company considering all of the issues with the bus and could not get through to anyone. We had a problem with the bus from the beginning. Our delays at the border were understandable at the very least, but having to continue in a malfunctioning bus with an overheated engine is really not ok. I would expect of a company to be much more proactive in organising a replacement bus at this point at the very least.A few weeks ago I was taking a night bus from Ghent to London leaving at 1am. An hour into the journey we stopped at a small tank station where a huge group of people were waiting. It turned out that they had been left to wait at that tank station for over 6 hours in the poring rain. This was because of the fact that the bus had supposedly killed a person back in brussels, it was all very vague and most people didn't really understand what was happening. Understandably the bus and bus driver were seized by the police for further investigation. We only had 20 seats left on our bus so 20 were allowed on leaving the rest of the mass behind. Luckily for me our bus drivers on this occasion were superb and got us to London even an hour before intended. This doesn't however negate the fact that those people were left at a small tank station, with no seating, no inside shelter in the poring rain for over 6 hours with no information. When they contacted customer services they had heard nothing about what was going on. In this case an empty bus should have been sent out immediately to pick them up and let them continue on their journey or at the very least to a nearby hotel or train station so they could continue their route in another manner. Like I said I have been a loyal customer of this company for a long time and on the whole always found it a decent service, I have come across many problems in the passed, being stuck in the tunnel for up to 6 hours, refugees at the border in Callais etc. causing all kinds of delays however In all of those cases I have always understood, there was nothing that could be done by the bus drivers or the company. When there was something that could be done it was done, for example I have had a new bus waiting for us at the other side of the border. If there were delays with the train or if we had missed our own one the bus driver would get us on the next available ferry leading to never more than a 3 or 4 hour delay. It seems to me however since the change from Megabus to Flixbus the service has been gradually decreasing which is a great shame. I think at this point I will have to find another way to travel between London and Ghent.

Date of experience: Aug 03, 2017