Avanti West Coast Reviews 

Train was delayed by 20 minutes, due to a police “incident”, no doubt just a routine check to see if they are still in fact the worst option for cross country travel. After this, they continued to be delayed consistently at each stop, until finally realising all connecting trains that they were supposed to be getting their valued customers to on time had somehow got in front of them. Likely would have arrived in Edinburgh sooner if I’d bought a foal, raised and cared for it, broken it in, rode it, stayed at a Premier Inn, and enjoyed a lovely breakfast at a roadside pub, all before this bloody service reached Carlisle. Only giving 1 star for the bacon baps.

I have travelled about 4 time to Manchester or Crewe to London Euston return. Most of the jurneys have generally (some have not) arrived on time to Euston. All trains from Euston have been late. I have on the traing for 30 minutes and tried to get a cup of tea, no he is not ready - rude & disgraful. You need fix this! The 2053 train is just leaving now but no tea!

I have tried to raise a complaint Avanti Train Website and it says my email is not valid! I know my email address is correct!

I have recently become disabled and require a mobility scooter. This was my first venture onto a train journey. The service and staff were fantastic at both Crewe and Euston. Alleviating all our fears. Excellent service thankyou

Several times have booked 1st class to holyhead and never any service in 1st class don't even get a voucher for free coffee and sandwich from train cafe disgusting waste of money

So we are travelling to Blackpool from Carlisle during major works and large chunks of the west coast mainline are closed.
Like they did last time Avanti are diverting to Preston from Carlisle over the Leeds settle route ,last time they faced major criticism on this diversion due to cancelled trains or trains running hours late.

In the run up to this period of diversions they've been all over social media saying it's different this time how much they've improved but this morning our return journey is cancelled .

We've managed to change our connecting train from Blackpool north to be fair for a very small fee so we can catch the Avanti train 2 hours earlier .

Still not convenient as we have to now leave very very early in the morning.

We have no choice but Avanti on certain routes and to be fair I had noticed a very very very small improvement but this shambles is just straight back to good old don't give a shit about the passengers Avanti and let's do what's best for shareholders and management bonuses.

I had a couple of enquiries that I sent though Facebook Messenger.
Fast, efficient service from Bipasha & Carmen, thank you.

Every public holiday they do engineering works. It’s almost like they don’t want people to travel. A 90 minute journey will now take 4 hours from Stoke on Trent to London to visit family as I have to go via Derby, Banbury or Birmingham rather than direct! What a shambles. I’m sure the work could be done at night instead of every public holiday. I had the same problem at Christmas. I don’t want to waste precious annual leave sat in trains for extra hours.

Horrific - cancelled 3+ trains and refuse to take ownership. Lied in my response to my complaint and downright disgraceful company

It takes real effort to run a system this badly. Constant changes, repeated delays and frequent cancellations have become the norm rather than the exception.

This is not just inconvenience. It reflects a service that feels unreliable and poorly managed. Compared to transport systems in many other countries, the decline is clear.

It is deeply frustrating to see standards fall to this level. This needs urgent attention and accountability.

Refreshments carriage/shop is pretty much useless. Spends more time closed than open. On 4.5 hr journey, was open for about 30mins only. On way back, just started journey and they have hardly anything on board - few chocolate bars only. Very poor service. Dont advertise a shop/refreshments carriage if you have nothing on board!!!

Just had the loveliest train trip back from Manchester to London euston (work trip) and I work a service job so I know how difficult it can be to keep spirits up when everyone is tired or it’s last train of the night but the 8:14pm from Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston on 2nd April 2026 staff were stars all around. Thank you!

Absolutely disgusting and rude customer service at London Euston, outside the platforms, next to the ticket machines.

While booking our tickets to London Euston, we did not have any information that the station is going to be closed for few days and it would inconvenience us in our returning back journey. That’s why we approached member of the stuff, the guy who was sitting on the chair by Avanti Train by the ticket machines. There was also an Afroamerican lady standing by him.

I’ve genuinely asked about what would be the best option for us, and I thought he will tell us which train or which not we can use on our ticket which we already purchased.

He was rude and obnoxious, saying I should have known that the station is closed cause everyone knows that from over a year and my email should have said that.

Well, if my email would have said that, I wouldn’t be coming to him asking for help.

The lady wasn’t helpful either. They did not even understood at first what I am asking for.

They did not help us with anything. Just showed me tickets on Trainline app, which I could do myself.

So so so bad attitude and lack of communication and empathy. Absolutely disgusting behaviour.

(He was a middle aged guy, it was 11:56am and I remember he was saying he is going for his break at 12pm. No idea what his name was, but I rather not meet him ever again in my life).

This is more a criticism of the website than the very patient advisors we resorted to - although we still failed to book any tickets after a total of 3+hours. The system apparently would not accept our cards - however 3 pending transactions have appeared on my bank statement....... Frustrating!

I had a journey to London booked today, missed my connecting train in Manchester and the best they could do was offer me a ticket for £130. With empty seats on the train that are going anyway why they wouldn't put in the effort to provide better customer service and offer a discounted ticket to a customer who is visibly distressed I will never know. Awful company will actively avoid going forward.

What an incompetent and useless company. Cancelled my train from Crewe to Glasgow about two hours before travelling. Next train was showing as on time, then 20 minutes delayed, then just disappeared! Station staff had no idea and no communication. They shouldn't be allowed to run trains in the UK

This is a review based on a return journey. The extra star is for the return.
Route, from Stafford to Euston and back on a first class ticket. 12 oclock down and 1 o'clock up.
On the way down there no offer of any refreshments, nothing, and no explanation why. The return gave no ability to have a hot drink. The seats are terrible, and there is nothing first class about the experience. The price is disgusting for the standard. I dread to think what the rest of the train was like if that was the best they had to offer. We wont be using the train when travelling again. I'd rather drive myself. Their contract needs removing.

Absolute shambles. On train from Euston to Motherwell just now. Rubbish collection about 45 minutes into journey. No further colection until now almost three hours later. I decided to take the rubbish to the bar before the second collection and on way back could not move due to passengers standing in aisle. Had to stand in aisle for twenty minutes, despite having a seat booked, before I could get off the train and realight at my own carriage. Highly unlikely I will ever travel with avanti west coast again .As well as this the on board shop was closed most of the time on our journey

Diabolical when booking reserved seats. I travelled from Euston to Preston with my son who is 4, and we were giving seats A3 and A29 confused as to why you would seat a child that far away from their parent or guardian? So couldn't sit in our reserved seats and ended up having to stress and struggle with our luggage to find seats together in the unreserved coaches which I must add aren't advertised anywhere so had to find them on my own.

Avante West Coast review

Missed opportunity

The train left on time. It was a fairly comfortable ride. however, my lower back was uncomfortable and it was quite difficult to have a nap

The ride was a fairly smooth and arrived at all the stations on time. the attendant frequently came past, asking. If we had any rubbish

Our tickets were checked once we got off the train and were leaving the station.

However, to my surprise towards the end of the journey, we were told that the shop was now closing. until that time, 2 hours into our journey we never knew there was a shop on board.
None of the screens displayed the shop or the menu. There were no announcements that refreshments were available to purchase

This seems like a missed opportunity for Avanti West Coast. my son and I hadn't had any lunch and we would have been happy to purchase perhaps a sandwich or a sausage roll or even a hot drink
But no opportunity was made available to us until we were arriving at our destination

So perhaps a avanti . Could make an improvement which would to announce at the beginning of the journey that there is a shop on board and refreshments can be purchased? This would be good for passengers to know that this is available, and in terms of revenue, an opportunity for avanti West Coast. However, thank you for a pleasant and the comfortable journey. And given the opportunity, we will ride with avanti again.

We booked an early morning journey through scotrail ap train was cancelled because of trees on line scotrail passed the buck because it was avanti train we were travelling on we got in touch with avanti about refund because we were over a hour delayed and after a bit of time on there site we got a full refund if you are delayed take pics of your tickets and journey as these are asked for when making your claim