My daughter is a fan of LondonMidland for her regular travels to London from Birmingham: she likes the Desiro trains, doesn't mind the travel time (happy to read...), and loves the low fares. As she was returning from her latest visit today, I suggested that she try out the Weekend First upgrade
Big mistake! Regular readers of my blog will recall that I rhetorically asked last Monday why LondonMidland were so coy about their First Class offers. Apparently it is not only the public who are in the dark...
The 15.13 service to New Street left Euston today from Platform 11 which meant that my daughter's ticket was checked at the barriers. On the train, she sat in the First Class compartment along with three other passengers and awaited the opportunity to upgrade her ticket. No announcement was made about the availability of the Weekend First upgrade but that didn't worry her unduly.
In due course, the train manager arrived and asked to see tickets. Both my daughter and another lady asked to upgrade to Weekend First but were told that Weekend First wasn't available on the train and that they should have bought the upgrade before joining. When they protested that this wasn't the case, they were told that upgrades on the train 'weren't the LondonMidland' way' and were threatened with a Penalty Fare fine unless they moved to Standard Class. Naturally, they both did, thus losing LondonMidland £20 in revenue.
So confusion would seem to reign. I am assured by LondonMidland's marketing dept. that Weekend First is available to buy on the train, so next weekend my daughter will carry the relevant page of the web site with her. In the meantime. the only good thing to come out of this episode is the immediate response of the LondonMidland Twitter team @londonmidland who were absolutely brilliant - not that they could actually get her back into First Class but at least they agreed she was in the right. Hopefully, next weekend will see the confusion sorted out.
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