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Are BF getting the message at last?


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A leaflet has fallen out of today's Times offering reduced fares on Brittany Ferries from Portsmouth and Poole, including peak dates!

29/05-04/07 £70 up to 5 days, £115 over 5 days; 05/07-26/08 £89 and £145 respectively - car and two adults.

Conditions apply and subject to to availability of course...

brittanyferries.com/summerfares for anyone who is interested

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If they are.... then good ...........I hope I have  helped.... I have not renewed my owners club membership  this year and have used LD Lines and Speedferries for the four crossings I have made already ....I hope they are reading this ....my next run over is end of June .... where I am being followed to the house  by  my cousin and family in their car... I  have booked us all with Speedferries  .....thats two more car returns they have lost due their current  prices .
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I've just booked with LD Lines for the first time for my summer trip down to Deux Sevres, even though I only live 15 miles from the Brittany Ferries terminal in Plymouth.  The reason being?

LD Lines return crossing with a single berth cabin with facilities on the outward journey - £195

Brittany Ferries Plymouth-Roscoff on the same dates on the Pont L'Abbe with a couchette without facilities on the outward journey - £405

Even with the 350 mile round trip to Portsmouth, BF is still double the price. 

Also the special offers aren't really of no use to me, as from Plymouth, you can only book the afternoon sailings, which means an extra cost of overnight accomodation once you get into port.

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I have got very tired and frustrated with BF. I used to have one of their property owners club cards that has been diluted in the benefits that you can get to the point where I just stopped renewing it. Now, I prefer to forsake the BF ferry and take Speedferries across to Boulogne at a fraction of the price. Of course you have to counter this with a longer drive to the Vendee but now that the auto routes are all joined up there is no problem. I will try LD Lines on my next trip over. Really, BF have to understand that they can't fleece the public anymore. Its also damaging the bookings for holiday homes as people are now saying "why bother with this expense when there are cheaper holidays available with easyjet etc". If BF can't see the writing on the walls by now.....
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hi all, For sometime we also had a home owner card with    BF, but as stated it became a sad joke over time, We have a house in Emouth and our french home is just outside St-Lo, so the crossing,s from BF worked out great for us, nowever for the past two years due to bring a motorhome and trailers across from the UK, we had to use Norfork Line, even with the cost of fuel it worked out £200 pounds less then using BF, Nowever Norfork have started  to up their prices to pay for their new ships, One odd thing we did find with BF, was that on a number of times their on line booking system worked out more then ringing them and booking over the phone. michael
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We still find BF Property Owners club worth belonging to, even for only a couple of trips a year. We've just booked for a long visit (early July to early September) travelling from Portsmouth to Caen at a cost of £231 (including a taller vehicle supplement for our small camper van) with a free daytime cabin both ways. Coming from Mid-Wales to southern Manche, the Portsmouth-Caen route suits us very well and means the minimum driving possible.  Horses for courses, I suppose...
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Just up the road from Portsmouth .......Newhaven  to Le Havre ...just up the road from Caen ..........  8th of August  busy time single on 1230  crossing  is £57.50   Car with two persons .... end of September and through October La Havre into Portsmouth  the 1700 LD Lines sailing  single fare is £49.50 .......bye bye  B.F .
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I have just booked our holidays (UK, I'm afraid in July). BF St Malo-Pompey-Cherbourg £284. LD LeH-Pompey return £275. OK, I am not exactly comparing like-for like, but BF is alot less driving (I am using our large van) and everything about the BF boats is nicer.

Sorry LD, with whom I actually have an account, you are now a waste of space.

 

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I haven't seen that claim. LD itself claims to have two-thirds of the traffic that P&O had on that route, despite running one ship rather than two, so even if it is making a loss, the sum will be much smaller than with P&O. As LD Lines is part of a very large shipping group, that has interests in many other industries, I think it knows what it is doing. has a sound financial base, and if it came down to financial trickery is arguably more able to survive than Brittany Ferries. Not that either company is likely to be interested; both make a lot of money primarily from freight operations and my understanding (being involved in maritime publications) is that each sees itself as offering a different, complementary, service rather than being in direct competition. So I would be interested in the source of the BF claim.
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  • 4 weeks later...
Just to add to this thread a bit late...I used LD Lines last week after defecting from BF for only the second time in 4 years (despite their higher prices, the BF trip works out better on the whole for me)  I used the Eurotunnel last time - superb and at 60 euros return I thought I couldn't go wrong - but the 8 hour drive up to Calais and an extra 1.5 hours on the otherside just works out at too much driving, especially as you can't avoid London! and if you start adding hotels it gets expensive again.

My LD Lines outbound (Fr-UK) crossing was hideous - nowhere private to go, kids everywhere you looked and not a space in sight to sit in peace.  The food was so rediculously expensive that I only got a main course and a water (the main course being pretty awful IMHO).  I found a lot (not all) of the crew very off-hand, almost to the point of being rude on occasion.  The return journey was better as I was booked into Club class (and then upgraded to Sleeper) - different world, finally some private space - tho note you do have to pay extra for this! After paying again to upgrade to Sleeper I was horrified to find that you have to pay (at least a deposit - I didn't ask further) for a blanket to sleep under!  In short I would equate LD with Ryanair/Easyjet - cheap crossings* but you pay through the nose for everything else.  Brittany may be a bit more costly on the crossing, but then you get - to continue the anaolgy - 'BA' service, private seating without having to pay, good [reasonably] cheap food, and as many free blankets as you can carry! Plus the huge advantage of three crossings a day - to me a big bonus when I only spend 1 or 2 days max in the UK)  I guess it all depends on what you are after. 

EDIT: forgot to mention, the unloading on LD was appauling, took absolutely ages and there was no-one to guide you out if you were near the rear, resulting on one person crashing their horse box straight into the upper level - sheer incompetence on the part of the crew who should a, never have put the vehicle in that place to start with and b, been there to help guide them out.

*I was all ready to book LD Lines this week again because of the cost difference, but on checking - LD Lines 280-odd euros, BF 290-odd euros.  Guess who I'm going with!  Tho what I can't understand is that on the BF 'Summer Fares' page it worked out more expensive?!

Matt

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  • 3 months later...

I think the point with LD Lines is that you should know what to expect and plan accordingly. Obviously one of the main drawbacks is lack of cabins. We always take our own pillows and quilts/or sleeping bags. We have earmarked several places around the ship where it possible to bed down in comfort. Last time we took two inflatable matresses plus pump!:LOL Worked like a dream. Got a good night sleep with no fuss in one of the club-class lounges. With sleeper seats I don't see a problem...how much trouble IS it to bring a small quilt and pillow with you in the car??? I usually take my own pillow with me as a matter of ourse because it ensures a good night's sleep.

Second...if you really get organized you can get a cabin on standby. We try to get to portsmouth early so we can get onto the boat early....it doesn't always work like that of course. However, one of us beetles off to the reception desk with all possible speed to make sure we are on a standby list. About 6 out of 10 times we are successful. I always stay within earshot of the reception desk until I am sure all cabins are allocated...on a couple of occasions we have been given cabins because we are 'there' and the person on the list who should have had it was slow on the uptake and the crew simply wanted them booked.

All in all...a cheap crossing well worth gtting organized for. And, as for food....I find it OK as ferry food goes but again, nothing to stop you getting a picnic together and bottle of red.

With you all the way on the loading/unloading of the boat though. One plonker last year loaded the car deck so tightly that several passengers couldn't get out of their cars! They had to have a rethink over that.

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Yesterday I was sat in the Clinique at Avranches and picked up a magazine and read an article on BF.  Of course the veg scenario came in and the history of the organisation was expanded upon.

They then went on to say they supported the local economy and at times from say the end of September through to early March there was no real need for them to do so?

However they then went further and commented that the various Prefets supported them in that they brought in tourism to the area.  This is shorthand for saying that the taxes in France and in those areas who are nearest to the coast subsidise the BF organisation.

Again they then argued that the new President would possibly support them against the swinging social security  costs in France and which do not apply to  other EU member states in relation to the ferry operations. For this I presume it means that the vessels are on the high seas and thus not accountable for either taxes or social security contributions.  They also argued against the benefits that low cost airlines enjoy out of Dinard but said they enjoy competition?

Finally and as to the future they threw some bombs into the air and said that perhaps they would attack the Dover Calais short crossing.

BF is akin to a UK organisation and which is based upon a myriad of support mechanisms and with sieges being based in overseas countries and thus not paying much if any UK tax.  You will never ever get to the bottom of the financial basis of BF.

How can the Mont St Michel run on just 40 cars and 60 heavy goods vehicles and that is what happened last week when I travelled.

However in travel terms in takes me some ten hours from door to door to get from Caen to our home in South Wales.

Despite all of this I enjoy travelling BF especially on the Portsmouth St Malo route and the restaurant and for which there continues to be substantial demand.

 

 

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Perhaps they are - have avoided them for about 2 yrs.

Today booked for beg. of school Hols,  ret. 30th Dec- with BF  car + trailer+3  = £284  (Portsmouth-Caen)

The price for LD same date etc £315.    Wouldn't it be nice if BF now competed with LD?   BF more choices & daytime ferries to France...

Tegwini

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