Frequent Travellers on Eurotunnel

[sueyh]

Is it just me or is the Calais to Folkestone window for travel getting less user friendly.  It used to be that you could travel back within your £39 return slot up to 15:00 now it appears to have changed to 14:00.

[:^)]

Suey

[Department71]

Received the below back from eurotunnel after my comments were sent to them re the change in times.

Steve

Thank you for your e-mail which has been forwarded to Customer Relations for

response and we have noted your comments.

Whilst we acknowledge your

disappointment with respect to the recent changes to our Frequent Traveller

scheme, it is important to bear in mind that these tickets, and the

applicable Peak travel supplements, are sold at a fixed low price unlike our

other tickets which are dynamicallypriced.

Therefore, Frequent

Traveller tickets do offer excellent value and not surprisingly the scheme

has been very popular. With limited shuttle capacity and over 12,000 Frequent

Traveller account holders, there have been certain system requirements which

have necessitated an adjustment to the Peak and Off Peak travel

times.

The recent changes to Frequent Traveller accounts opened from

15 December 2005 have been introduced in order that we can continue

to offer the same exceptionally low fixed-rate fares and supplements,

under the scheme, rather than introducing a fare increase.

Thank you

again for taking the time to contact us and for your loyalty to the

Eurotunnel service. We hope you will continue to enjoy the excellent benefits

of the Frequent Traveller programme and we look forward to welcoming you

onboard one of our shuttles very soon.

[Alane]

It would be interesting to see how they respond if you point out the low cost of Speedferries frequent traveller scheme.

I would do so myself but they obviously have me down as a serial complainer after I engaged in an exchange of e-mails after being delayed. Interesting comment about "fixed low price" - it's nothing of the sort as they charge a premium for peak times. This is the usual guff that they come out with in response to comments or complaints - "our service is so popular" etc. Perhaps their managers should pop down to the terminal outside of peak times and see for themselves the trains running with only a couple of carriages loaded with cars.

Best Regards

Alan.

 

[Brilec]

My cousin uses Eurotunnel quite a bit. She has found that on several occasions, they were unable to put her on the booked train, and on each occasion she got a voucher for a free trip. This does bring the cost down overall, quite a bit.[:)]

[Fay]

Hi Suey

See the slightly earlier post "eurotunnel frequent traveller changes". We lost an hour in both directions - can't travel out until after 4pm now, either.

They did e-mail me with the info a few days before the change came into effect (and I guess they should have mailed all current FTs) and I would have coughed up for another 'carnet' (despite having 8 one-ways still to use) but, with work and all the Christmas run-up occupying my mind, I forgot until the day after the change came into effect! Bother...

[Alane]

Brilec

Has this happened lately? We got a voucher for a free day trip (which I haven't used yet and probably won't) after being badly messed about last Easter but nothing more than a "our service is very reliable and we are sorry you were inconvenienced on this occasion" type response since then.

Best Regards

Alan.

[Fay]

I only ever got a free trip voucher once, when we were boarded onto a train whose engine wouldn't start, so we had to disembark and board another.That was 5 or 6 years ago I think.

These days I use the tunnel for at least 10 return crossings a year, I suppose, and have never been unable to travel on the train I was booked on (except when I turned up cutting it very fine and got held up by the security 'swabbing' at Calais, so got put onto the one after the one I was booked on). More often than not, though, I've crossed on an earlier train than the one booked.

So no vouchers for me.

[Alane]

Fay

We seem to have a differing experience - the luck of the draw no doubt. We travel on around 12-15 return journeys per year and estimate that on between 20 to 30 percent of journeys we are held up. We often travel out on a Thursday night and the comments from the Dutch and Belgian commuters going back for the weekend aren't good news for Eurotunnel. To be fair it has improved just recently but for a long while we gave up arriving early at the terminal because we were never put on an earlier crossing but had to accept that turning up on time would result in frequent delays. I detect that they are trying to improve things but just get it wrong too often.

We'll keep our fingers crossed for a reliable service next year.

Best Regards

Alan.

[Steve Last]

I am pretty ticked off to find that the schedule has been "fixed" as well to prevent one using the off peak periods: eg. Folkestone/Calais is up to 0559  but when I tried to make a booking for Jan 2nd I find there is a service at 0126, and another at 0254, then nothing until 0618. I used to use the 0558 and a gap of three and a half hours is not an acceptable service. Guess what: £30 extra to use the 0618!  

Steve L