I recently bought a ‘best of’ CD by a band called The Divine Comedy. A little research told me a well known song by them is called National Express. I checked it out on YT (link below). I think the video would have been funnier had it been set on an actual coach, but the lyrics are hilarious. Here’s an excerpt:
On the National Express there’s a jolly hostess
Selling crisps and tea
She’ll provide you with drinks and theatrical winks
For a sky-high fee
Mini-skirts were in style when she danced down the aisle
Back in ’63 (yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
But it’s hard to get by when your arse is the size
Of a small country
Anyway, this got me reminiscing about my own National Express days when, as a student in Leicester, I’d travel by coach for hours to see my then girlfriend in Newcastle. For a laugh, I jumped on the National Express website to see if they still operate that route, how long it takes and how much it costs nowadays. And thus the point of this cunting.
Costing out a return ticket I noticed a booking fee with a little information link next to it. So I clicked that and saw this:
When booking a ticket with National Express, we charge a booking fee which is different depending on the way in which you book:
Using our website – £1.50
Using one of our station’s ticket vending machines – £2
Buying a ticket at the coach station desk – £2
Phoning our contact centre – £3
So to travel with National Express you have to book your ticket and to do that they charge you a booking fee? Isn’t that like Tescos charging you an entrance fee in order to buy their food in their supermarkets? It gets worse as they completely undermine their own justification for doing this. Their explanation continued:
The booking fee helps us to make sure that our website, payment, and booking engines are as secure as possible for our customers. Charging a small booking fee also means that we can constantly invest in new technology to make sure that you get the best experience when booking tickets on our website.
Hang on. They’re choosing to have an online booking system in order to attract more customers 24×7. The cost of that infrastructure is just part of doing business, but they’re charging customers a separate fee to use that booking mechanism. OK then, why not just buy the ticket in person at the coach station ticket counter? Oh wait, there’s a £2 booking fee for that, so what’s that fee paying for? Locks on the staff lavatory doors? ‘Phoning in a booking must be the cheapest option of all, right? Wrong! That’s £3 and here’s why:
For phone bookings, adding a small fee to each ticket means that we have enough staff in our contact centre and coach stations to process your booking as smoothly as possible.
So ‘phone customers are paying for the privilege of calling in new business and subsidising in person coach station transactions which they didn’t use. And finally dear cunters, the icing on their bullshit cake is this:
No Booking fee with My Account: Sign up to My Account for free and save £1.50 on your ticket purchase when you book online.
So if everyone had a free online account to avoid the £1.50 online booking fee, how would National Express, “make sure that our website, payment, and booking engines are as secure as possible for our customers”? Equally, how would they “constantly invest in new technology to make sure that you get the best experience when booking tickets on our website”?
Fucking hypocrites. I’d have more respect for these cunts if their website just said, “We charge a booking fee for no reason other than to boost our profits. We get away with it because this customer fleecing practice is so prevalent now, customers just expect it and pay up. If you don’t like it, fucking walk”.
What other bullshit fees need exposing? Over to you.
Nominated by : Imitation Yank
Back in the day Bikeshed Ange would give you a hand job for a swig of your cider.
Now the greedy bitch is demanding you give her a couple of chips as well.
She’s getting above herself is that one.
13
Never mind the rip off booking fees. the worst thing about National Express , and the reason I would never use it, is that the passengers eat fucking egg sandwiches. How fucking selfish, making the whole buss stink like a fucking shithouse. Fuck off to the moors or the fucking beach if you want to eat that stuff.
Good morning, everyone.
13
PS Please excuse the typos, but this sort of behaviour really makes me see red.
13
What immediately comes to mind is the fee I have to pay,by law,to the council to have my bins emptied.
It’s getting on for £50 a week.
I’ve noticed when passing through more “vibrant” areas that the rubbish is simply thrown over the fence in most cases,making paying for removal quite unwarranted it appears.
It’s all very confusing.
The filthy cunts.
13
More precisely on topic,public transport has never been delightful but has become like a Special Forces selection course in recent years.
Therefore I try to shun it,apart from aircraft taking me on a foreign holiday,which is a trial all of its own.
I wouldn’t dream of going anywhere by coach due to immediate exposure to outright rampant Cunts.
Dear me.
13
Why does any adult use public transport voluntarily? If you work in London I can understand up to a point, though I always drove in and around there. But anywhere I go I just step into the car outside the front door and drive there. If a destination such as a supermarket restricts the parking and/or charges for the privilege I don’t go there. Simple.
With the exception of flying for obvious reasons.
14
PS Unk, I wish we were paying the council £50 a week; passed that milestone some time ago now.
13
I’m paying over £50 a week for my late Mum’s house totally empty and over £75 a week for our house at least they do empty our bin efficiently.
0
Has anyone noticed (along similar lines) websites offering free delivery but include a ‘handling charge’, so they are charging customers for handing the package to the deliver driver.
Be like Tesco charging you for checkout cunt to handle the purchases from the belt to the packing area 😂
13
Mrs Twatt had the misfortune to take a National Express coach from Cambridge to Glasgow once. Several passengers turned up carrying a 1 litre plastic bottle of coke and a half bottle of Bacardi. Each of them tipped some of the Coke onto the street, then replaced it with the Bacardi, and proceeded to drink the lot on the journey.
The 7 hour Journey from Hell, she informs me.
13
The earlier Freedom Passes enabled you to use National Express, before they cottoned on to losing money. They didn’t like that one bit according to Imitation Yank. Glad I was to be that much trouble in the early days.
2
I used to work at Victoria coach station late 70’s to early 80’s. free travel passes for all employees on the old National Express. Happy days😊
14
I’m less tolerant these days due to living alone for years. Other people get on my nerves. I only like traveling on buses when sat next to a lady friend with her hand in my pocket with the inside taken out.
4
Bloody hell. I haven’t been on a National Express coach for years.
I did use them on occasion, when following United up and down the country.
I preferred the train usually. Besides, the train was easier to jib. Going to grounds by rail was all part of the ritual and atmosphere.
Last time I used an Express coach was 1999.
13
Think I’d rather ride on the Marrakech express 😩….
13
Are you Imitation Yank`s old girlfriend in Newcastle, Geordie?
🫡
13
National express!!
I would rather fly air India, for short trips.
Just drop me off at the end of the runway.
I’ll take my mutton vindaloo to go.
Service charges are the work of the devil.
Order 10 tickets at the same time, get 10 Service charges?
Utter piss take..
13
I once got stranded in Bristol,
A Bank Holiday weekend and had to get a coach up to Manchester.
I was tired and wanted to get home
Not keen for chatting with other passengers i made my way down the coach.
Not many seats left, but there!
Near the back,
Two seats empty.
I sat down and across from me was a sihk bloke crying his fuckin eyes out.
I ignored the cunt.
Waaaaahhhh!!! 😫
The raghead cunt had no shame.
An i made the fatal flaw
” you alright pal?”
The whole fuckin journey back the cunt told me his fuckin family problems.
I tried to politely show he was boring me and that I couldnt give a fuck about his wife.
But hints didnt work.
By the time I got to Picadilly i was in tears myself.
And thats the last time I travelled by coach.
1