Are you traveling through Europe and thinking of booking FlixBus to travel around? I booked a Flixbus trip over a week ago, thinking the prices were great. Here’s how it went:
I booked my bus tickets from Basel to Amsterdam, not wanting to fly such a short distance, but also not excited about the prospect of an overnight bus. But the promise of wifi, power outlets, and the convenience of air conditioning and toilets ultimately sold me on FlixBus.
Looking back, I should have just gone with the train. Here’s why FlixBus sucks:
The assigned seat you pay for is imaginary
I boarded my bus a bit confused as there were no announcements, just two guys checking passports on the street. I stepped into the bus and looked for my selected seat, 27C. As I started peering at all the seatbacks, and the overhead areas, other passengers let me know there weren’t any seat numbers. Weird, considering I paid extra for one.
I went to the top deck and chose a seat in an empty area. To be fair, the seats were awesome. They reclined super far back. The gentleman directly in front of me reclined his all the way, which left me barely any room to move, but at least I’d be able to sleep. There wasn’t anyone sitting behind me, so I went ahead and reclined mine, too.
The amenities offered are imaginary
After everyone boarded, the driver pulled away and turned off the lights (it was an overnighter after all). That was when I started looking for the power outlets. I couldn’t see any. My partner saw me fumbling around and joined the search. Nothing. Nowhere to charge our devices, the ones whose batteries we used up thanks to the empty promises of FlixBus.
I next checked for WiFi. You guessed it- nothing.
We soon pulled up to our first stop at Basel Airport, where the driver announced we’d have fifteen minutes to use the toilets. Hold on- toilets were also supposed to be on the bus. We went down to check, and only found a “Sorry not working” sign taped up to the toilet door. Good thing we quickly used the airport toilets, because we didn’t have another toilet stop. On a 13 hour trip.
Did I mention it was uncomfortably warm, with stuffy air rising up to the top deck? What about that air conditioning that was promised? I put my hand up to the vent, obviously, nothing. No air-con.
So in short, essentially every amenity promised was a complete failure- toilets, wifi, power outlets, seat selection. The only two things I liked? The seats reclining and that the drivers drove carefully through lots of fog.
Customer service? You guessed it – imaginary.
I reached out to customer service to relay all this info. The only way to contact them is through a chat, where you can at least be connected to real people, but they all have a script and no actual ability to help you. They can’t refer you to someone who can. Essentially, they claimed that because I got on the bus that I am not entitled to any refund, not even partial. Despite their false advertising of always having toilets, wifi, power, air conditioning, and straight up selling assigned seats that don’t exist, all that apparently matters is that I got to my destination.
Lacking any human element, these “customer service” chat assistants might as well have been AI chat bots, except that AI doesn’t make so many grammatical errors, and only kept repeating that because I got on the bus I had no case. My guy, the issue WAS that I got on that awful bus.
Would I Recommend Flixbus?
If you’re thinking about booking a trip with FlixBus, I’d say only go for it if you need the cheapest option. If I knew what it was going to be like, I would have gone with the train instead. Go on, check some reviews for yourself to see. They’re dreadful.
