Closure of East Coast Rewards now confirmed – what should you do?

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• James67 says:

  20 Jan20 January 11:05

  ECR is a loss but I’m more concerned about fares. Ny guess is these will mirror Virgin west coast so in reality a huge price hike. Promos between GLC and EUS have been nonexistent to my knowledge with Virgin ehilst EC has had some great inhouse and third party deals across the network. I am guessing east line has much lower passebger volumes than west so hopefully that will continue to drive discounts. I still scratch my head wondering why I can book travel for today on a plane cheaper than the train.

  • callum says:

    20 Jan20 January 11:19

    I doubt pricing will greatly change. Even if it is as expensive as you claim on the west coast, fares are regulated. They aren’t legally allowed to have a massive price hike.

    The plane can be cheaper than the train for numerous reasons – principally that the people with expensive tickets subsidise the cheap fares and that rail infrastructure is incredibly expensive to run.

    • Frenske says:

      20 Jan20 January 11:30

      It is indeed unlikely there will be a price hike. In the first place there is not that much price difference between the East-Coast and West-Coast trains. However it is easier to find discounted advanced tickets on the East-Coast at the moment than on the West-Coast. East-Coast had also some great promotions (once I did a £10 return LON-EDI) for people who like to travel on non-peak hours, which probably will disappear completely.

      • James67 says:

        20 Jan20 January 12:28

        Yes, this is exactly my point; I did not mean a price hike in real terms but rather as the practical reality of less advance tickers, and fewer inhouse and third party promotions rwsulting in the need to purchae more expensive tickets. Ovee seven years I cannot ever recall even seeing a single Virgin promotion between GLC/CAR and EUS; at that time I was very frustrated with the wealth of offers from EC but since moving to Edinburgh a year ago I have been delighted to tame advantage of them. Obviously, like many others, I will be sad to see them go if they dry up with the new franchise. IIRC though National Express and GNER before EC also did frequent promotions so hopefully new operators will have to do so soon. I recal Callum orsomebody else commenting in another post some time ago that Virgin did promotions on routes further south, but I suspect that was driven by competitin they do not have to CAR and GLC. My concern is that they will use their influence on the east line to ensure there is little difference between what we ultimately have to pay between Scotland and London by removi g availability of promotions.

        • Alan says:

          20 Jan20 January 12:42

          Yes, hopefully the sheer number and low price of flights between EDI and LON will help keep these promos coming on the ECML.

        • callum says:

          20 Jan20 January 12:52

          Fair enough, though a quick look at next month has fares from Euston to Glasgow for £20. Virgin are also part of “Megatrain”, though not to Glasgow, so you’ll possibly see more routes included in that, with fares from £1.

        • James67 says:

          20 Jan20 January 15:17

          Thanks Callum, will look out for any developments on megatrain. I guess that will be most likely the source of any future inhouse promotions. If they do £1 offpeqk singles all will be forgiven! The £20 month out advance singles on Virgin West Coast do exist but not very common, probably time of year. Yesterday I was looking for CAR-EUS and best I could get for my dates in late February were £33 and that was with a railcard so nondiscounted price about £50.

• danksy says:

  20 Jan20 January 12:24

  Whilst it’s bad for the collectors of EC rewards points.

  I’ve got to say I think it’s very , very honorable of virgin to compenstate at all for the accrued loyalty points.

  Well done Virgin!

  • Rob says:

    20 Jan20 January 12:33

    Wait to see the conversion rate before you get carried away! I also get a feeling that the Government would have insisted on this as part of the contract.

    • danksy says:

      20 Jan20 January 14:24

      Either that, or a cheap (if using nectar) way of virgin building their mailing list!

    • Aeronaut says:

      20 Jan20 January 21:49

      I suspect that’s the case – unlike a normal franchise change, in this case what’s happening is that the Stagecoach/Virgin joint venture is going to take over ownership of the existing East Coast company (which is currently government owned).

• barnaby100 says:

  20 Jan20 January 19:20

  I spend about £20,000 a year on EC 1st class. We get 4 x lounge passes and then use the rest for tickets. My son travels to and from school each week on an E Coast 1st class reward. We use 100 ish a year ourselves and tend to book tickets for family etc.

  Even with his tickets it saves me £3000 a year. (30 weeks x £100 average). Not at all impressed by the Virgin scheme on the surface.

  • Aeronaut says:

    20 Jan20 January 21:44

    Perhaps your son would be OK slumming it in steerage?

    • Calchas says:

      21 Jan21 January 15:22

      Maybe he would, what does it have to do with the valuation?

    • barnaby100 says:

      21 Jan21 January 18:38

      Does that matter. he is 18. What would you have preferred at 18? in 1st he gets a full meal and drinks- much better reward options/value than standard. Imagine if it was said that you shouldn’t use airline rewards for anything other than economy travel- there would be outrage on here!

• Al says:

  20 Jan20 January 22:28

  For those who don’t have enough points to redeem a free ticket, would it be a good idea to redeem EC wifi vouchers?

  Does anyone know if the wifi vouchers last forever until used?
  Also, what is the likelihood of Virgin deciding that wifi will be free for all? :O

  • Alan says:

    20 Jan20 January 22:38

    I think it was already mentioned in the comments that Virgin are planning free WiFi for all. I must say whenever I’ve used it before I’ve been pretty unimpressed with it – I’d consider using the vouchers for something else!

• Joe says:

  20 Jan20 January 22:31

  Wonder if you’ll be able to use Virgin Traveller tickets on the new route.

  • takke says:

    22 Jan22 January 17:37

    I doubt it. Generally speaking there is almost no co-operation between franchises in the UK even when they are owned by/branded as the same company

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