THEY MADE ME WAIT 3+ HOURS AND THEN THE BUS WENT WITHOUT PICKING ME!!
Here are my 2 experiences with City Land Travels, booked on redBus.
1. Kullu to Chandigarh
I changed my boarding point to Bhuntar, without a hitch - the staff was polite. But the bus was 1.5 hours late. The shopkeepers at the boarding point said that the most likely reason was that they merged the passengers of 2 buses into one, due to low occupancy. And the bus when it finally came was not even half full.
2. Chandigarh to Kullu (return)
My boarding point was ISBT-43, but since I was staying close to Zirakpur, I called the driver and asked if I could board from Zirakpur Metro instead. He said ok, and that he’d be there between 12 - 1 am, even though the bus was actually supposed to reach ISBT before 12 (2 hours late already). I waited till past 3 am, calling the driver at least 4-5 times just to make sure he stopped. But when the bus finally arrived, they picked up another passenger, and as I rushed to the bus, it started to move. The helper and driver both saw me, but they didn’t stop, with the former shouting something at me as they went. Then I called redBus customer care, who put me on conference with the driver, who initially said he was just a few minutes away, and then changed it to ’outside Chandigarh’. Later, like after 30 odd minutes, redBus customer care called up saying that the bus was waiting for me at ISBT which is like an hour away, which itself was a joke. Even funnier was the attempt by City Land to blame the entire episode on me, saying that I should have informed the bus operator and not the driver for change in boarding point. This was not mentioned by redBus, nor by the driver in any of our 4-5 conversations. If the driver really intended to let me board the bus, he would have stopped as soon as redBus customer care called him up.
In my opinion, they picked up another passenger instead of me on purpose. Maybe they again got passengers of 2 buses onto 1. Or the other owner offered more money to the operators/driver.
Now about the role redBus played in this fiasco:
1. The live tracking was not zooming out, so it was impossible to figure out where the bus actually was. Had I known the exact location, I could have stood in front of the bus to ensure it did not leave without me.
2. There are multiple boarding and dropping points which sound really similar, but are mentioned as different. As a result, I had to take a punt on which was the right one among the many similar options, and settled for a low rated operator. Also, each time I applied a dropping point filter, the buses shown would be different (for the same place!)
3. Customer care is eventually at the mercy of the bus operators/drivers. They don’t really have any authority, nor can they demand an action, or ensure any consequences.
Finally, customer care offered a full report of what happened, and a refund too. None have happened.
redBus is like those unicorns who have a monopoly now, so don’t really care about customers!! (I was also constantly getting SMSes from them about ticket details - like the same message repeated 5 times in an hour!!)
Never using this service again!!