DON'T! Just don't. Worst service ever.
I had reserved a coach for a group of 40 people from a Danish choir, where more than half were senior citizens. We were going from Antwerp to Bruges and back the same evening. This was 26th of May 2017. I had the reserved - and paid - several months in advance.
The time we were supposed to be picked up from our hotel, there was only a driver, but no coach. "It wouldn't start", he said, trying to contact other bus companies. But we had a lunch reservation in Bruges and couldn't wait much longer. So we walked to the train station and took two trains and local busses to get there instead of the comfort of a coach.
We had a nice day in Bruges after all, and were picked up by a bus from another company when we went back.
We can all agree that things like that happen, but was is NOT okay in the whole thing, is the way the bus company, ADS Autocars, has handled it afterwards.
Initially you would expect them to write immediately and apologise for their mistake, and reimburse the train- and bus tickets right away. Well, they didn't. The last three months have been a farce of non-replied e-mails, phone calls, promises and lies.
I wrote them a week upon our arrival back home. No answer for a week. Then an apology and a promise to come back to me as soon as he (the manager, Mr Tuyttens) had talked to his driver. No reply. Then I wrote again, with the amount we needed to be reimbursed, plus an extra 10% for our inconvenience, and he wrote back the next day, that they would need the tickets and receipts. Of course. I scanned and emailed them right away.
No response. Then I tried to call. Was told that the manager was out of office with a group in Holland, and he was the only one with access to the bank account. Could I call back next week? Yes, of course. I did. He wasn't in. Surprise. Could he call me back tomorrow? Yes, sure.
Needless to say he didn't call.
Finally, in the end of July (I think it was), I talked to him, and he promised, that he would make the deposit the next day. Which he didn't. Over a week later, I called again, to ask about it. Someone in the office said, that the money had been deposited the day before. A lie, plain and simple.
Finally, last Wednesday, we received a credit note, and Monday this week, 21st of August, the money was at our account. Almost 3 months - THREE MONTHS - since ADS Autocars let us down in Antwerp.
But they only paid us the exact amount of the train- and bus tickets. Nothing extra for all the inconvenience both on the day of their mistake, and all that I have had to fight with them since then.
It's a horror story, and I recommend NOBODY to ever use this unreliable company. And if you do, never pay them in advance.
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September 19th 2017.
Just to determine facts.
We have never communicated with any other coach company than ADS, and was never told, that we would have a coach operated by another company. If you can show me, where you have told me that, I will be curious to see it. I have ONLY, and all the time, communicated with you. It really shouldn’t be the customers problem, if you operate with services from secondary providers without passing on this information.
The day of the trip, a man showed up, saying he was our driver. How were we supposed to know otherwise?
Fantastic “goodwill” with the local busses ... NOT! None of us had never been to Bruges before, and when your company asked me by e-mail for where we wanted to picked up and dropped off, I gave you the address of our hotel, and wrote to be dropped off in the centre of Bruges. You never told me, that wasn’t possible. How was I supposed to know this? I would have expected that a “professional” busservice company would have informed us of the drop off.
Antwoord van A.D.S-Tuyttens
The way the situation is described is not correct. We are a small company with only 4 coaches and I am driving full time with 3 other drivers. So it is normal that most of the time I am on the road trough Europe, espessially during spring, summer and autumn, which is high season for us. Answering the phone during driving is not done! But I never got an SMS: "Please call me back"!
The facts are: This group wanted a coach on a day we were sold out and just to help them we gave this order to another coach company. We are only intermediate is this whole story, this group had no coach from our company at all. So the review doesn't apply to our company.
The group leader writes we are liars but I think she mixed up which company she was talking to.
It is not true there was a driver without coach, that coach was late and the man they saw wasn't even a driver.
But because the time to the groups lunch was shortening the fastest option was to go by train. The train tickets were reimbursed at 100%. They also got reimbursment for an extra local citybus AS GOODWILL, an amount they couldn't even claim because the historical city centre is pedestrian zone and no coaches are allowed inside it. So from the coach park in front of the railway station, they should have walked to the restaurant anyway. For the inconvenience, as goodwill, they got this extra compensation! No thanks at all for this?
What they don't write is that the service provided for the return journey was perfect. This was performed from the same coach operator as the one who had to do the morning transfer. They told me they did apologize for being too late in the morning.
We could have said to the group leader: "This is the phone number of the coach operator who was supposed to bring you to Bruges, call him and solve the problem with him." On the contrary, we solved the problem for this group and this review is what we get. This is unfair.
It is true it took some time to have the money from that other company send back but in the end the group got reimbursed more than what they paid for that transfer and more than what they could claim. So I'm convinced I did the maximum I could to secure that they got the money they claimed, which in the end they received.
So as they got the money back, I can only conclude that we handled this case as well as possible. If you have to go to court, it takes at least 5 years before you get a verdict and another 2-3 years to get the money! There was absolutely no fight. From the first contact I told I would do everything I could to get them the costs reimbursed and they got the money. It took some time but this is a normal period when there are several parties involved (we are only an intermediate).