Megabus are the only serious national competitor to National Express, the UK’s largest scheduled operator of long distance bus services.
FlixBus are another company offering a smaller (but growing) service for intercity travel within the UK.
The Megabus network connects London to almost all major cities across England, Wales, and Scotland. For many popular routes, you can choose to travel with either National Express or Megabus, in addition to train services.
In London, the main hub for Megabus is Victoria Coach Station, the city’s sole major coach terminal, which it operates alongside its main competitor, National Express.
One of the main draws of traveling by coach is its affordability, especially when compared to the primary rail option, which tends to be quicker but pricier. Online promotional fares can be quite impressive. In fact, it can often be less expensive to take a coach all the way across England than merely to reach one of London’s airports.
Megabus is a subsidiary of Stagecoach PLC and, similar to National Express, is a well-known publicly traded company with a significant global presence. Their coaches are modern and equipped with air conditioning, restrooms, and are designated as non-smoking. While Wi-Fi and charging ports have been introduced to the fleet, their availability cannot be assured.
Visit our Bus services between London and the rest of Europe page for more information on long distance travel.
The dominant national operators at Victoria, National Express and Megabus have a stranglehold on services.
Furthermore, FlixBus, the European bus operator, has its main station at London Victoria. While the most popular routes connect to nearby cities like Paris, Dublin, Amsterdam, and Brussels, you can also travel to destinations on the far side of Europe with FlixBus services.
Victoria Coach Station is quite central, 5 minutes’ walk from Buckingham Palace and Victoria Railway and London Underground Station. Victoria is also a major London hotel district with accommodation options for all sectors of the market.
Visit our Victoria pages for more information.
The Megabus fares structure is very similar to low cost budget airlines. The broad concept is keeping fares low cost with minimal overheads but delivering a quality product for that money.
The broad principles are:
Although you can buy tickets from a few ticket desks and ticket machines, notably at Victoria Coach Station, nearly all tickets are sold through the web site. The service is ticket-less just using reservation numbers.
When booking on-line you will get your e-ticket immediately by e-mail. The seats on the ticket are reserved so you are assured of a seat, but individual seat number reservations are not allowed.
You can put one medium-sized suitcase – weighing up to 20kg (44 lbs) into the luggage hold- plus one small piece of hand luggage per person that must fit either on your lap or under the seat in front of you. The maximum size of a single bag is 200cm (width + height + depth).
Should you wish to carry extra baggage, you would be required to purchase an additional seat.
Drivers loading the baggage do not weigh bags and use their discretion. Note, the National Express luggage limit is two cases.
Things like bikes, snowboards and other outsize luggage are not carried. Pushchairs can be taken with you but must be folded up and put in the hold and form part of your luggage allowance.
National Express stands as the primary competitor to Megabus, offering services to numerous towns and cities across the UK. Directly competing on many Megabus routes.
National Express boasts a significantly longer history than Megabus and operates a more extensive route network, covering most towns in England and Wales. In contrast, Megabus primarily focuses on linking major cities and key regional towns.
The vehicles used by both companies are very similar.
The main differences between Megabus and National Express are:
Discover latest offers, great discounts, online exclusives and other ways to save on coach travel.
Despite being a relatively new company, FlixBus has experienced rapid growth and has quickly built the largest intercity bus network in Europe.
FlixBus now offers 60+ routes across 36 UK destinations on its network, so it also specialises in town-to-town transport options (alongside international routes).
FlixBus have used technological advancements to differentiate themselves by offering e-ticketing, a booking app, free Wi-Fi on board and GPS live tracking.
Their green buses are a way of trying to show their environmental credentials and sustainable approach to their business.
Started in Germany, they now cover a myriad of routes across Europe and offer cheap prices and are continually expanding their route capability.
Cheapest prices from London to Paris.