LondonMidland's Great Escape: good value but too successful (part 2)?

LondonMidland's Great Escape promotion has interesting set of restrictions out of Euston Monday to Friday. Basically, First Class is not restricted, whilst Standard Class can travel between 4pm and 7pm by buying an additional £5 easement before the journey back...

As it happened, I was joining the 1913 departure from Euston's Platform 17. This is an 8-car Desiro formation, the front four carriages of which go forward from Northampton to Birmingham - a fact that was clearly marked on each of the two 4-car sets. The timing of this service is good (2 hours 3 minutes), making it almost as fast as the equivalent Chiltern service. However, just as Chiltern are finding it difficult to manage off-peak demand back from Marylebone, so LondonMidland have produced a combination of circumstances which meant the train was completely full and standing when I arrived to join it 5 minutes before departure.

The situation was exacerbated by a lack of revenue control, and the non-appearance of the train manager whose only contribution was to urge passengers to move down the already full train in the hope of finding a seat. Clearly an own goal by LondonMidland who risk alienating their First Class commuters in the pursuit of the family off-peak market (it subsequently transpired that one family in the Birmingham First Class compartment were travelling on Standard Class Great Escape tickets, but it would take a brave train manager to ask a mother to make her children stand...).

Fortunately from my point of view I was able to get a First Class seat after the Leighton Buzzard stop, and, I have to say, that it is perfectly possible to work on a laptop in the airline style seats (at least there are power points). First Class remained full until Birmingham, though clearly not all were First Class ticket holders, and Standard Class did not become comfortable until Coventry.

No ticket checks (of course??) until after Birmingham International - LondonMidland really need to get their customer facing staff more focused. Mind you, one suspects that the staff feel dumped on in such situations.

Overall, would I use the Great Escape again? £20 walk-on with voucher compares to £25 walk-on Standard with Chiltern and £44.30 walk-on Standard for Virgin (admittedly, both would be more expensive for a 4pm to 7pm departure). For both companies, their standard fare offers so much more than LondonMidland's First Class fare - so, sorry LM, but you're only occasionally going to persuade me to use you after yesterday's experience.