There are TV screens -- maybe a little tight on the leg room," Jon observed, as we boarded the bus. There was no obvious shabbiness about it. So it was cheap for other reasons. First, there's little overhead -- no bus stations, no reservation agents, and all the booking is done online. If you don't book sufficiently in advance of your trip, it will cost you more.
Which means, really, that I waited too long to book, and it's procrastinators like me who allow the company to make a profit. He was happy with what he got. If you've ever taken an intercity bus, you might know what a "normal" bus ride means. The bathroom wasn't impeccably clean, which distressed Jon. It's coffee or I don't know what it is. It makes me kind of uncomfortable," Jon said as he emerged from the restroom.
He says the non-flushing toilets are a standard issue coach bus feature. There are similar low-cost, express buses along the East Coast. Moser has high hopes for the Chicago-based Megabus, which just launched in March.
So to see if Megabus was still the cheapest mode of transport I compared it again with getting the train, National Express or flying when booking in advance.
The Megabus will save you money, no matter when you book it. Win a new iPad! Do you want to comment on this article? You need to be signed in for this feature. Terms of use Privacy policy Disclaimer. You could travel to Bristol, Salisbury and a clutch of other selected cities for just a few pounds but finding your chosen trip on their website is a bit like finding exactly what you want in a grab bag of wrapped presents.
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. The company goes directly from London Victoria to Bath. Doubtless, you can find some fares that are cheaper than the main coach companies and that go exactly where you want to go, when you want to go.
But you could spend precious hours of your life trying to figure that out. If you want a quick answer, that would be, "Guess. You no longer have to enter their booking process to search for a trip but, until you enter destinations, dates and time of day, you have no way of knowing whether the journey you want to book is available.
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