EasyBus to Gatwick-Waterloo - Don't Use!

With the upgrades to London Bridge station reducing the rail services, my girlfriend and I decided to test out the new Easybus Gatwick-Waterloo service last Wednesday night (25th) around 7pm. In short, do NOT do it. People had already been waiting an hour by the time we got there. We waited a further 40 minutes before a bus turned up, unfortunately going to Earls Court, and only had room for 2 people without luggage(!?). The phone number EasyBus provide for customer service rings out at any time of the day, and they haven't responded to Social Media since Aug 2013 (looking at all the messages left (which are similar to my experience), you can see why!). You also have to send a refund request by post. We paid £7 each for the bus, but after giving up on that we paid £11 for the train direct to Elephant & Castle. It’s certainly worth the extra £4.

All in all, a shocking experience. I would’ve thought that launching a new service (coupled with reduced competition) would’ve seen them make a huge effort to embed themselves in a new market, but the exact opposite eventuated. The bus driver was also very rude, however I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt on this one, as I think he might get abuse all day for reasons beyond his control.

Avoid at all costs.

a-greed. what a shame. i ended up having to stump up £160 for a taxi.

It's a real shame - more competition can only be a good thing for consumers, and I've always thought highly of EasyJet's customer service (in relation to other low cost carriers), but EasyBus really drops the ball quite spectacularly.

I tried once Easybus from Gatwick to West Brompton. I was attracted by the price (I paid £2) and by the fact that, at the time, I was living not far from there.

It was Sunday evening; I was at the pickup point 15 minutes earlier than scheduled. My minibus never arrived. The following buses were already containing people from the North terminal and they were picking up only people having the ticket for that particular time. The second time I was refused to go on board, I started to lose my temper. In the end I gave up, I had to take the Gatwick Express at full price (a robbery) because it was the only one arriving in time at Victoria to allow me to take the tube.

Probably, if nothing unexpected happens, the service can be considered decent. But they are not able to manage unexpected conditions.

I will never use Easybus again :)

A friend of mine had a good experience on that route in 2009, from memory. A quick scan of their facebook page shows that, since then, they've made all their customer service staff redundant. You can see the angry messages from ex-staff that they haven't bothered deleting. This would explain quite a lot.

Probably they survive, despite of the low quality of the service, because they take advantage of occasional travelers (especially tourists), attracted by low prices.

I often see unhappy looking people at what seems to be their pick-up point on York Road.

I think that the fact they use minibuses instead of coaches is why passengers are left stranded at bus stops.

These minibuses are Mercedes Sprinters City 65 and can only carry 12 passengers: it would take a fleet of them to fill a single passenger aircraft...

But if your booking on line it would say the bus is full so not available? Or do you buy a ticket boarding the bus?

It's always Thameslink for me to get to Gatwick. I have an annual Travelcard so with that discount it makes for a very speedy and affordable ride. From Elephant & Castle even with a change at Blackfriars it only takes 45 minutes.