Avanti West Coast Reviews 

Absolutely awful train company.. our train from Euston was cancelled.. no one had bothered to let us know. Euston to Stockport.. member of staff told us to get on the train before the cancelled one.. we were then met with the most rude and obnoxious train manager.. who told us we had no right to be on the train and proceeded to charge us a £10 admin charge each… she was condescending and arrogant.. complaint has gone in and a request for the ‘ admin’ fee to be returned
Never again would we use this joke of a company.. there are alternatives Avanti.. and we will use them

The seats on Avanti West Coast trains are so uncomfortable it's mind blowing. They have a weird shape and the foam is like sitting on concrete. My arse and spine felt like someone had kicked me off the thing by the time I got past Milton Keynes. My trip from London - Manchester and then back again was horrid because of it. At £150 return, disgraceful. Sort it out. I am honestly never getting on one of them again. Foam don't cost much Avanti. Bad reviews do!

Dreadful journey from Preston to London, uncomfortable, stuffy, packed full and with people having to stand, no hot food, no hot drinks, and a very angry aggressive unpleasant member of staff. While we struggled to get to our seats ( we had mistakenly got into the wrong carriage ) This horrible man followed us and shouted at us to stop. He then began to berate us and was very threatening. He said we had "almost" knocked somebody over...???!!! We were totally unaware of any such incident. If we had bumped into someone, we would certainly have apologised. He pointed and shook his finger in my husbands face, and said, "if I see you do that again, I will throw you off the train" ..... we were stunned by this dreadful, unacceptable, aggressive so called train guard. We are two ailing pensioners for goodness sake, not two rampaging teenagers ! We eventually found our seats, and sat there for the rest of the journey in shock. The journey itself was just horrid and to have staff members like the guard on there as well was the icing on the cake. What an appalling company, we have never experience anything like that before. That will certainly be our last ever trip with avanti trains.

andy . mellors @ avantiwestcoast . co . uk
CS/CEO, 
So I have finished my last journey with your obnoxious unaccountable company populated with obnoxious arrogant staff and I am pretty sure Thuggish violent 'security' staff

Two things before I finish

1. The abuse I suffered 18.04.26 at New Street was ths result of over officiious Customer aherrmmm 'Service' Maggie and 'security'Mr 'Thuggy' pretty sture he was AWC. if the loss of a reservation (how dare I ! Sorry I am not perfect like your staff, joke 'Ceo' ! You appear a bit slow going on AWC performance)  justifies in your minds  (it doesnt in mine) then why were my tickets were checked on your precious trains ONCE and the reservations were not working out or return ? 
Great quality system 'Ceo'

2. Had a great weekend in London. How can TFL be so friendly, helpful and professional on one of the biggest weekends of the year (as indeed do all companies appear apart from  from AWC) what makes your lot so special ? My guess is useless underpeforming ' Managers' and a  'CEO' whom doesnt seem to care.

My opinion is for some reason you are deliberate to be taken back into public ownership 

Shocking 

andy . mellors @ avantiwestcoast . co .uk
Needs to earn his and get a hold of his staff
Vile, physically abusive & dangerous, I find their rediculous post about staff having feelings and being entitled to safe environment blah, blah, blah unmitigatedly hypocrisy of the highest order.
Maggie in Birmingham T.O. was an inflammatory, arragont, rude, obnixious, vile know it all. How dare she speak to a 63 year old person in the manner she spoke.
Thuggy from security attacked me, pushing me and tried goading me in it hitting him.
No chance thuggy to clever for oiks like you youth
Does anyone at AWC ever read Trustpilot ?
Surely andy . mellors @ avantiwestcoast . co .uk
should actually do something to justify his salary ? Why does he not listen to the many people who are telling him how rude his Customer 'Service' 'people' are ? Why do they think they are so much better than the people who pay their wages to be rude, offensive and violent ?
Need taking back into public ownership and get rid of about 75% of obnoxious violent staff and employ people who actually want to work and dont have this bizarre view that Customers are irritants and there to serve them in their easy jobs. The signs about staff prove Mellors only cares about his staff and not customers whom are spoken to in a vile manner and in my case physically attacked

Rude untrained staff barking orders at people. If they do not enjoy their jobs I would encourage them to seek employment elsewhere although I struggle to think of anywhere that would want them.

Avanti West Coast services were beyond abysmal. Train was 20 minutes late. We were advised that it was possible to claim a refund / compensation. However, it was impossible to register online and when I telephoned I was told I would need to speak to another adviser, but was left hanging on the phone with no response for over 10 minutes listening to music, adverts and riddles. I gave up in despair. Hope I never need to use Avanti West Coast again. Over an hour wasted this morning online and on the phone.

On 19 December 2025, there was a major disruption on Avanti West Coast due to a reported train collision with trolley. I followed staff instructions to leave the station. During the chaos, I lost my physical ticket.

When I returned, I showed my digital booking confirmation. One staff member let me through, but a manager (Nel) then removed me and forced me to buy a new ticket, even though reception staff (Emma) confirmed my ticket was valid.

I complained. Avanti refused a refund. The Rail Ombudsman reviewed my case and concluded there was "inconsistent communication" from staff but still refused compensation.

After escalating to the Managing Director's Office, they offered me £4.80 as a "goodwill gesture" for a £39.44 ticket. I declined.

I am sharing this so other passengers know: if you lose your ticket during disruption, Avanti will not help you, and their staff may contradict each other. Very disappointing service.

Update: Avanti replied to me on Twitter, repeating that 'rules are rules' and offering no real resolution. After 4 months, their final offer remains £4.80 for a £39.44 ticket. Judging by their social media responses, they have no intention of treating passengers fairly during disruption

Avanti MD office finally refused a fair refund, hiding behind the fact that the train was 'on time', while completely ignoring that their staff kicked me out of the station during chaos. They offered £4.80 for a £39 ticket. This is how they treat customers. Shaming.

I have written not so glowing reviews of this company before so it’s only fair I write a review when things go well

Start with the bad

1st class toilets don’t work AGAIN! You really need to sort your maintenance out. Gone the engineers the right budget and tools and they will make it right

Now the good

Clean
On time
Food great
Service - exceptional
All told the staff made it a great experience.

Big shout out to Michael

19:07 Euston to Liverpool lime Street. This guy is a legend.

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).