National Express Reviews

1.6 Rating 323 Reviews
13 %
of reviewers recommend National Express
1.6
Based on 323 reviews
Shipping & Delivery
Delivery Methods
Own Driver
On-time Delivery
Greater than 26%
Customer Service
Communication Channels
Telephone, Email, Live Chat
Queries Resolved In
Over A Week
Customer Service
1.7 out of 5
Returns & Refunds
Refunds Process
Difficult
Read National Express Reviews

About National Express:

National Express coach & bus tickets for travel to over 900 destinations throughout the UK including London airports Heathrow, Gatwick & Stansted. National Express offer Britain’s only scheduled coach network reaching around 1000 destinations in England, Scotland and Wales.

Phone:

08717 818178

Location:

National Express House, Birmingham Coach Station, Mill Lane, Digbeth
Birmingham
B5 6DD7

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National Express 1 star review on 24th April 2024
SELMAN AKSUNGER
National Express 1 star review on 23rd May 2023
Anonymous
National Express 1 star review on 23rd May 2023
Anonymous
National Express 1 star review on 9th July 2022
You Bus Smells Like Shit
Anonymous
Anonymous  // 01/01/2019
Horrible drivers with absolutely no respect.... disgusting....
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Posted 4 years ago
Ridiculous! Currently on a bus from London to Leeds and it's red hot but the HEATING IS ON!!! They can't even figure out to turn the aircon on!! I can't breathe! I'm about 3hout into this HELL BUS Fyi it's the 561 bus. Not that your company cares about their passengers.
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Posted 5 years ago
On 13 March 2023 I traveled from London Victoria to Nottingham at 20.30 -23.30 In coach NX450 all my journey was worried because I can’t charged my phone none of the switch was not working and my battery was dead and was thinking how I can book taxi to pick me Not good at all 🥵🥵🥵🥵 I didn’t enjoy my journey even I try to call national rail office it goes on voice mail
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Posted 1 year ago
I had booked a ticket with National Express to travel to Birmingham, stay in a hotel overnight and then had booked a ticket with National Express to go to Oxford for the day on 14 June 2021. But now that the PM has said that from 21 June there will probably be no social distancing, National Express have cancelled all their coaches running to Oxford prior to 21 June, because they just cannot be bothered to run them with social distancing now that things are changing from 21 June 2021. No matter that I had another journey booked with them and had booked a hotel. They do not care about their customers at all.
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Posted 2 years ago
Very bad service selling tickets and leaving people wait for the next buss that's what happened to me my firts and last travel with this firm staff not helpful had to wait for two hours for the next one ruined my trip home suggesting to everyone don't travel with them they are not express 😂
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Posted 3 years ago
On 09/12/2023 the driver of the the 025 coach from London Victoria to Brighton refused me entry to the coach, as my ticket was, according to him, not valid. In fact, it was perfectly valid which has since been confirmed by the coach company. But he refused to even discuss what his issue was, even though I presented him with both a printed and digital copy. I haven't encountered anyone as rude and dismissive as him in a public facing role. I am a female and it was late at night and I felt extremely vulnerable. As a result I had to spend £100 getting a taxi to my destination, which I really can't afford. It was really upsetting incident.
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Posted 4 months ago
The coach travelling from Chadderton to Bradford has extremely poor service. if you are coloured no point of booking the 171 national express coach as the coach driver will see you waving but will still ignore you and drive off. i would recommend women not to waste your time and money. As the 171 coach travelling from Chadderton to Bradford has done this a. few times to other coloured women. national express is only a service unfortunately for white and privileged people, it doesn’t care about others.
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Posted 4 months ago
Awful experience! Due to multiple attempts in contacting the national express complaints and customer service team I have had to resort to writing a negative review as the response to my formal complaint offered barely any resolution. While I was refunded my bus ticket of £5, I am more comparing and giving my negative review over national express’ disregard for patient safety and change of bus departure (which led me to have to pay over £80 for a last minute Uber) and lack of communication/resolution to my complaint. Update: response from national express 23-MAY-2023 “Having reviewed your case again, given that we did contact you by email to inform you of the changes despite the email going into your junk folder I am unable to add anything further to my colleagues comments. Unfortunately, I am unable to warrant any compensation on this occasion.” This email is upsetting as they did not follow their typical guidelines national express stated to me “When we need to change the time or date to the ticket we would normally automatically email new ticket to the email that was provided when ticket was purchased. I'm sorry to hear that this did not happened.“ per their response, it is their responsibility to notify customers of the time change with a new ticket. Unfortunately, I was just made aware of the time change however the email was sent from an unknown email! So of course it will then go to my junk. It would be different if the email had come from their official ticket email address as that is an email I would look out for but how should I know to be constantly be checking my junk for a potential national express update from an unknown email! Someone as critical as a time change should be sent by an official email and have an option to acknowledge the change (something airlines do!!). The last thing is the live update said the bus left after I had arrived so regardless of the time change, I should have made the bus due to the bus’s delay. This is another reason why I had missed the bus! I expect a live bus tracker to be updated accurately.
National Express 1 star review on 23rd May 2023 National Express 1 star review on 23rd May 2023
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Posted 11 months ago
My 2 19 year old sons along with three of their friends booked a return to Leeds from Milton Keynes on 18th returning on 19th March. Unfortunately they had car issues on the way to Milton Keynes and arrived 1 min before the bus departed. One of my sons ran to the bus and asked the driver if he could wait just a couple of mins for them to park their car. He said ‘no’ and said you’ll have to get the next bus. The office would not allow them to use the ticket they had paid for the next bus, so they all had to fork out £30 each (£150 in total). When they got on the next bus, the driver said he would have accepted their tickets from the earlier bus. There were plenty of seats available. My son tried to get a refund, but he was told it was company policy. These boys don’t have a lot of money to spare. I think your company are extremely mean at making them pay again when there was plenty of space on the later bus. Very unkind and money grabbing company. My sons will not be travelling with you again! The 1st driver was very arrogant and could have easily waited 2 mins, but worse than that they were charged the extra £150 on top of what they had already paid.
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Posted 1 year ago
Should be zero rate !!! but without 1 star will not let me add my review! Please be careful and never use National Express coach service from Stansted airport. The driver of the National Express came about two hours late,was very rude and disrespect to us passengers,he shouted and was very aggressive,his language was vulgar and very inappropriate acting like he is on top of the world, he started an argument as a result of which he refused us to travel with him. National Express employee there were very unpleasant, unhelpful and didn't consider us as passengers at all, they created their own fake story with this rude driver so they wouldn't have to refund our tickets. They never refunded us for our tickets. We had to return to London by train at our own extra cost. BE AWARE DO NOT USE NATIONAL EXPRESS SERVICES! Better is to take the train from Stansted without delays and extra stress. Using National Express was a big mistake and no one from my family will ever use National Express again. I just want to warn people that it is not worth choosing this service to travel with National Express. Never never again
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Posted 1 year ago
This company is a joke!
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Posted 1 year ago
National Express might be the cheapest way to travel! But they are the worst! Save up the money & get a flight or use the train! After the ordeal my elderly mother went through travelling with them they are a disgrace & diabolical in my opinion!
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Posted 1 year ago
Very poor service from the National Express customer service desk at Victoria yesterday evening. I ended up sorting the issue out myself with the phone app and buying another ticket although the one I had was supposed to be fully flexible as the staff member refused to change it. The young lady behind the counter was very slow, rude and unhelpful. Also many other people left the queue as it was taking so long.
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Posted 1 year ago
Staff were very unhelpful at ticket booth.
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Posted 3 years ago
Got to our gate 10-15 minutes early, no call to get on coach, which wasn't visible due to it being parked behind another, surely you'd expect a last call just before the bus leaves at least??
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Posted 4 years ago
Shocking beyond belief. Why on earth run a coach service to an airport that is consistently late and by a country mile ... And charge for it, great business model, not! Just build in a couple of hours contingency on top of the schedule and expectations are managed. Simples!
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Posted 4 years ago
I booked a ticket online and was at the stop more than 10 min before departure. The bus was not white so I didn’t think that was the right bus because they never have a different colour. At the departure time I then went closer to the bus and realised it was a national express bus. When I tried to board the coach the people working there told me it was full and I could not board the coach I pre booked online. They say they give priority to pre booked tickets but that is a lie. This isn’t the first time it happens. Don’t book with national express.
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Posted 4 years ago
Booked tickets online got a payment confirmation from paypal but no e ticket. Cant call them by phone because the lines are now out of hours and if I could they're premium rate and no option for live chat. Really!!!!
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Posted 4 years ago
Zero sars is more to the point! I had a journey booked with NE for 12:15 , but after 40 min standing there without any information when driver will show up I had to book a taxi and pay extortionate amount of money - £147 and just barely made my flight! I was flying from Luton Airport at 16.40, gate closes at 16:05 with the luggage to check in. If your bus driver would of made it on time, my scheduled journey arrival time would of been at 14.30, but with all the waiting around etc, I only just made it to the airport for 15:00. We were told that driver was late for his shift (probably hangover after Christmas!!) and therefore he was having his lunch break for 45 min. This is not a regular bus journey that people are booking to travel from one stop to another, this is an airport transfer, so mine and many more flights were at stake because of someone's unprofessional behaviour. Customer assistance staff member was saying that we all should definitely complain because this type of thing is happening all the time and no one cares!? Beyond belief, how terrible your service were and how much money this journey cost me, I am looking forward seeing a refund of £173.90. This is a friendly email for now, but I feel that this type of story would strike an interest of BBC Watchdog or Financial Times for sure, I mean you recon foreign people don't complain, and they just forget about all issues you put them through?!
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Posted 4 years ago
Rubbish. Lesson learnt: Never rely on National Express when going to the airport.
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Posted 4 years ago
National Express is rated 1.6 based on 323 reviews