: Mon Jul 27, 2009 12:00 pm  

In defence of the excellent Bulls ticket office...

I popped in on my way to the home match against Wigan to book on the coach. At the time they were still taking names but had not confirmed that they were running a coach. They took my name and number and said they’d phone me on Monday morning.
They phoned me as promised and told me there would be a coach so I booked my coach and match tickets then.
Unfortunately I forgot to ask them to put it in the post as they normally do (I work too far away from the ticket office to get there during office hours).
It wasn’t until Wednesday night that I realised that I hadn’t received my ticket. It normally always arrives the next day. It occurred to me then that I hadn’t specified they post it out.
I phoned the ticket office as soon as they were open on Thursday morning and explained the situation. They immediately offered to send it out by guaranteed next day delivery to my workplace. Again, it was my mistake in not asking them to post it out but they were still happy to go out of their way to get the ticket to me.

Anyone who has ever booked coaches for this kind of trip knows that it’s very expensive. It would have cost the best part of a grand for the coach on Saturday – maybe even more as they had two drivers.
When people phone a couple of days before you’re due to go to the match and expect there to be places available then they really don’t understand that you can just go on booking more coaches and hope to get enough people on them to pay for it.

More than one time this year there have been half empty coaches travelling to games and this costs the club money it could do without losing.

Is it really too much to ask to book the week before the trip? They’ll do everything they can to get you on the coach but to expect them to just book extra busses days before the trip and then get ranty about it when they don’t is unfair.

[Bullseye]

: Mon Jul 27, 2009 12:06 pm  

AndreaB wrote:

Anyone who has ever booked coaches for this kind of trip knows that it’s very expensive. It would have cost the best part of a grand for the coach on Saturday – maybe even more as they had two drivers.
When people phone a couple of days before you’re due to go to the match and expect there to be places available then they really don’t understand that you can just go on booking more coaches and hope to get enough people on them to pay for it.

More than one time this year there have been half empty coaches travelling to games and this costs the club money it could do without losing.

Very interesting and I'm sure folk will understand the circumstances the club works under now.

AndreaB wrote:

Is it really too much to ask to book the week before the trip? They’ll do everything they can to get you on the coach but to expect them to just book extra busses days before the trip and then get ranty about it when they don’t is unfair.

Good point!

: Mon Jul 27, 2009 12:10 pm  

Why post a letter of complaint on a message board under the heading `The club is a joke' without first getting a response from the club as to whether they were a joke or not.

Giving up his seat without guaranteeing a coach seat first shows that he was the actual joke.

: Mon Jul 27, 2009 3:24 pm  

AndreaB wrote:

In defence of the excellent Bulls ticket office...

I popped in on my way to the home match against Wigan to book on the coach. At the time they were still taking names but had not confirmed that they were running a coach. They took my name and number and said they’d phone me on Monday morning.
They phoned me as promised and told me there would be a coach so I booked my coach and match tickets then.
Unfortunately I forgot to ask them to put it in the post as they normally do (I work too far away from the ticket office to get there during office hours).
It wasn’t until Wednesday night that I realised that I hadn’t received my ticket. It normally always arrives the next day. It occurred to me then that I hadn’t specified they post it out.
I phoned the ticket office as soon as they were open on Thursday morning and explained the situation. They immediately offered to send it out by guaranteed next day delivery to my workplace. Again, it was my mistake in not asking them to post it out but they were still happy to go out of their way to get the ticket to me.

Anyone who has ever booked coaches for this kind of trip knows that it’s very expensive. It would have cost the best part of a grand for the coach on Saturday – maybe even more as they had two drivers.
When people phone a couple of days before you’re due to go to the match and expect there to be places available then they really don’t understand that you can just go on booking more coaches and hope to get enough people on them to pay for it.

More than one time this year there have been half empty coaches travelling to games and this costs the club money it could do without losing.

Is it really too much to ask to book the week before the trip? They’ll do everything they can to get you on the coach but to expect them to just book extra busses days before the trip and then get ranty about it when they don’t is unfair.

Excellent post, Andrea. Yet another area where the club is damned if they do, and damned if they don't.

What would be good is if you could book and pay for your seat online. Something like the jet2 site, pay for your trip, then on a seating plan click on any green seat, it's yours.

Once full, enquirers could be put on a list to receive an email if a further coach was opened for definite bookings.

: Mon Jul 27, 2009 3:25 pm  

How much is the coach to Quins and can I book it now ?

: Mon Jul 27, 2009 5:17 pm  

Andrea...remember that trip to Cardiff you laid on, when the bus company thought Cardiff was in North Wales...?

And. many moons ago shortly after the inception of BISA, the club asked us to look at the possibility of us taking over the coach trips to away matches. It did not take us much research to soon appreciate that its an absolute pain of a job, and you can lose your shirt if you don't fill a coach. We soon concluded that none of us on the committee fancied becoming personally liable for a whole range of things, financial and otherwise, so we passed on that one. No surprises really that the club was looking at alternatives!

Point is, Andrea is (as usual) dead right in what she says - and she is better placed than many on here to know.

: Mon Jul 27, 2009 7:02 pm  

Adeybull wrote:

Andrea...remember that trip to Cardiff you laid on, when the bus company thought Cardiff was in North Wales...?

And. many moons ago shortly after the inception of BISA, the club asked us to look at the possibility of us taking over the coach trips to away matches. It did not take us much research to soon appreciate that its an absolute pain of a job, and you can lose your shirt if you don't fill a coach. We soon concluded that none of us on the committee fancied becoming personally liable for a whole range of things, financial and otherwise, so we passed on that one. No surprises really that the club was looking at alternatives!

Point is, Andrea is (as usual) dead right in what she says - and she is better placed than many on here to know.

What a load of old rubbish. If the club really cared about us fans they would put on a spare coach to cater for the overfill of the main one even if meant that ther was only one person on it. If it runs at a loss it would be worth it just to keep the very occasional user happy. I dont wonder the club is going down the pan!

The peoples team???

Its all Platt and Macnamaras fault anyway and the sooner they go the better. Ba$tards :

: Mon Jul 27, 2009 7:15 pm  

eddievan wrote:

What a load of old rubbish. If the club really cared about us fans they would put on a spare coach to cater for the overfill of the main one even if meant that ther was only one person on it. If it runs at a loss it would be worth it just to keep the very occasional user happy. I dont wonder the club is going down the pan!

The peoples team???

Its all Platt and Macnamaras fault anyway and the sooner they go the better. Ba$tards :

The scary thing is, some on here will likely agree with that!

[Bulliac]

: Mon Jul 27, 2009 9:25 pm  

Adeybull wrote:

:lol: The scary thing is, some on here will likely agree with that!

Surely not Adey?? Actually, come to think of it...........

The (slightly) strange thing to come out of this thread is that you say the club wanted BISA to take over the running of coaches. Up to the start of SL, the running of coaches to away games was done by the old supporters` club. The actual organisation was done by a couple of ladies, one was called Christine (sorry I`ve forgotten her surname) and I believe they were a little miffed at the time to lose the job. If you wanted the coach back then you booked on the previous trip or rang Christine`s home number and not the club`s ticket office.

Of course the supporters club, which was run by supporters, was kicked into touch when the club started their own `fan club` (remember that?), so, from what you say, I`d guess that the club only actually WANTED to run the buses for three or four years. I think, in many ways, it shows that in many ways, since the supporters`club also ran fund raising ventures, the ill fated `fan club` has cost the club quite a bit in the last few years.

: Tue Jul 28, 2009 11:59 am  

itsnotthateasybeinggreen wrote:

I received a phone call from Stuart Duffy yesterday morning. I must give great credit to him as he held his hands up and accepted that there had been a mistake in updating the bulls website.

He accorded me a great amount of his time to explain the position and was genuinely sympathetic to the difficulties that have arisen.

Whilst I have been unable to secure a place on the coach and will now have to travel independently and stay over I still believe the Bulls are worth it. Not an ideal conclusion but Stuart clearly demonstratedd that he does care about the fans and the clubs image.

Unfortunately I cannot say the say about some of the so called Rugby League fans on here who simply use this forum to vent unsubstantiated views or moronic comments that fail to advance any debate.

Good to know he got back to you, if we had had a space in the Car we would have offered you a lift