Do you need a Coach ?? (gobycoach.com)

Member Name: yampy

Product:	gobycoach.com
Date:	10/11/00 (1819 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well laid out

Disadvantages: none

It's not the quickest but it must be the cheapest way to travel these days. National Express is Europe's very best scheduled coach service. They can carry over 15 million people a year to about 1200 different destinations all over Britain, they also cover Europe and Ireland. Most of us know of, or have heard of National Express so I will not bore you with stories on how they lost my luggage or that when the coach turned up three hours late, and I was left standing at a bus stop the whole time with three children crying in the rain. So my opinion is about there web site, and the site is called www.GoByCoach.com but if you do forget and enter nationalexpress.co.uk you will be directed to their new site.

On arriving at the home page you will be asked if you want to log in or register as a new user. Filling in the form to register is quick and easy, the standard name and address blah blah, once you are a member you then will be able to have full use of this web site. They will also let you book online using debit/ credit card. An added bonus,for being a member, is that for every purchase of a ticket that you get online from www.GoByCoach.com they will issue you with 100 Argos Premier Points for every £10 spent. You will be given an Argos Premier Points membership account when you sign up with gobycoach, if you already have a account then just provide your account number when asked at the registration phase.

You can accrue as many points on your card as you want to then these points can be used to buy products from Argos. Five hundred Premier points are equal to £1:00. If you ever want to check up on your points total just phone 0870 241 0913. You can also collect Points at BP service stations, Somerfield stores, Family Hampers and Southern Electric/ Scottish Hydro Electric.

Navigation of the site is simple and fairly fast with all the information laid out basically. To start with just click on the Times and Fares button at the top rig
ht, this takes you to start location and choose destination screen. Enter London as an example of the beginning of your journey and then Edinburgh as your destination. You then need to enter the dates for outward bound and return if necessary then press next, the next screen confirms the information that you have just entered but giving you the option of also choosing a bus station in London and the same again in Edinburgh. Press next again this will give you a list of all departure, arrival and journey times for your chosen date plus the amount of changes.

On this page you can then pick on the number of passengers and passenger types, which are Adult, Child, Student, Young Person and Senior. The next screen gives you the price, and for this journey as an example, comes to £24:00 that is for a single adult travelling on a Wednesday setting off at 10:30am and arriving at 20:05 without any changes that is a total journey time of 9 hours and 35 minutes. Clicking on next will now take you on to the online booking screen. For an extra ninety nine pence you can get travel insurance with your ticket, the cover is £500 for property, £10,000 for accident and £1 million for public liability.

The same journey for a child,aged between five and fifteen, would cost £12:00.Children under the age of fourteen will only be allowed to travel if accompanied by a responsible person aged sixteen or over.

If you are the holder of a Student Discount Coachcard then the cost of this journey would be £20:00 or £20:99 with insurance.You can obtain a National Express Student Discount Coachcard over the phone on 08705 808080 or visit any one of over 2,000 National Express agents throughout the UK. If you're not a student and are under the age of 26 you can apply for a Young Persons Discount Coachcard.

Advantage Discount card holders, which you can apply for if you are over the age of fifty and cost £9:00 for one year and only £19:00 for three years, wi
ll save between 20% and 30% on the above journey.

The Family Saver Discount Coachcard will cost £15 for one year and gives two children aged between 5 and 15 free travel when with two adults that pay the standard fare. So for the journey above the cost for a family of four would be £48:00 or £51:96 with insurance.

Collection of tickets can be done from one of the many collection points scattered around the UK. The address of each coach station as well as opening times are on the GoByCoach web site. You must write down the ticket number which is displayed on the ticket confirmation screen because you will be asked it when you go to pick up your ticket, remembering also that ticket offices are normally only open during office hours. You could choose to have your ticket sent by first class post to anywhere in the UK or by airmail to anywhere in the world. Be aware though that you must leave enough time for your tickets to arrive before your travel or departure date, National Express suggest 4 clear days from the booking date to the travel date.

All the services offered by National Express are non-smoking, they have on board toilet and washroom, and some offer steward/ stewardess service with snacks and drinks. Short Breaks, including London, regional resorts, Airports and Europe. The Tourist Trail Pass is the perfect answer for UK residents who want to travel around the country. They have great value packages which are travel and admission to tourist attractions. Other services offered include Flightlink and Jetlink which provides a service to and from the main UK airports, Speedlink this connects Heathrow and Gatwick airports. Eurolines is the main European express coach service.

If you have any problems finding the information you need then call this number 08705 808080 between 8:00am and 10:00pm seven days a week. Links is a part of the site you should checkout. There are about twelve to pick from and vary f
rom discounts b
eing offered by VoucherSaver.com, links to Student World, Young@Heart, ferry operators, public transport, tourist attractions and tourist boards. One other extra that is worth a look is the competition, "Guess the Location", if you win the prize is a trip for two to a mystery location in Europe.

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