Megabus why so cheap

The more flexibility you have on date and time of departure, the more likely you are to ride for cheap! Also, travelling mid-week will often save you more money on Megabus trips. It is far wiser to book the ticket and not use it than to wait and have to pay ten times that as the date approaches. They have lots of specials — especially for people willing to travel on weekdays! Long journeys get pretty packed so be prepared to have to sit next to someone else.

I was fortunate enough to have pretty normal-looking people next to me and avoided any unwanted conversations or annoying travelling habits. That won't always be the case though, so ear plugs could be useful. Many other seasoned travellers pulled out blankets and travel pillows as soon as we pulled off which made nine hours a lot more bearable.

At one time the company offered train as well as coach UK English for bus travel. They no longer do that. What they do offer is relatively cheap bus services in their own fleet, painted with a blue and yellow livery. Their cleanliness, temperature control, promptness, perceived safety and general comfort seem to have mixed reviews but are apparently in line with low-cost bus and coach travel in general.

So What's The Catch? These are the main issues you have to look out for:. Such budget travel is possible because the company only serves the most popular routes and only on a limited, relatively random schedule. So the cheap fare you are after may only be offered on selected routes and only on certain days of the week. Just because you can travel to your chosen destination at 7 p. You may have to travel very early - or late, or at a time you would not ordinarily have chosen, to get the lowest fare.

We tried to plan a trip from London to Bath. Initially company's website offered us a fare finder without actually indicating whether there was a London to Bath journey available. Then the "fare finder" apparently became too busy so we were switched to a "Journey Planner" there did not seem to be a way to go directly to the journey planner in the first place. When we finally tried to enter Bath in the journey planner, we discovered that we could only choose from a selection of bus stops "Near Bath".

The journey outbound took two and a half hours and the return trip to London was three hours. A further local bus trip of a little over an hour each way was required to reach Bath bus station. The total time spend on a bus was three and a half hours outbound, four hours return. We compared this with schedules and prices for a London to Bath bus trip using National Express , the UK's biggest intercity coach company.

Their drivers are generally not as experienced as other coach companies. Last month on a journey to Portsmouth we spent 45 minutes searching for Birmingham airport and we ended up at our original location. The airport is signposted pretty clearly too which was frustrating.

There is no compensation and making a complaint is impossible. Meaning you could be waiting in the cold, rain wind with little or no shelter. Share this: Twitter Facebook. Like this: Like Loading