Greyhound Bus Lines

Just learned the hard way… they tacked on $ 18 as a «gift fee» when I booked a trip from BOS to NYC. They say the fee is when someone other than the traveler pays for the ticket. Doesn’t make any sense because my relative doesn’t have a credit card. I tried to convince the customer service supervisor why they sneak in that fee when I pay. She said it’s clearly displayed before I pay. I asked her to explain the logic behind this fee and she couldn’t elaborate other than it’s «company policy». I asked for the ticket to be canceled and refunded… she said they can’t refund it because it’s non-​refundable. I got so frustrated with this nonsense that I just hung up. How can a company behave like this and get away with it. I will never use nor recommend this company to anyone else. Just plain horrible. My bad for not reading the reviews ahead of time on Unilocal

The bus left before the scheduled time, and we had called Greyhound beforehand to let them know we would be arriving exactly the minute before the bus was scheduled to leave. The bus driver refused to wait literally 1 minute and was pulling out of the station as we were running to catch it. I would highly discourage anyone from choosing Greyhound Boston as the service people and bus drivers do not possess human emotions. The bus line also managed to overbook the next bus and made a group of 7 wait for the one after that. So disappointed and disgusted by such horrible, disorganized customer service! Greyhound, you have lost a loyal customer.

Greyhound is the worst company I’ve dealt with in a very long time. They add a $ 18.50 gift ticket fee when a parent buys a ticket for a student going back to school. They have customer service based in India and when I called to question the fee they disconnected me. My advice is to try every other option to get where you are going and only buy a ticket on Greyhound if it’s the last possible option. Horrid!

Really a hit or miss… more often than not, a miss. We traveled from Montréal to Boston last weekend. On the way there, the bus was uncomfortable and dated, but the driver was very friendly and accommodating. Although the wifi was spotty and the outlets only worked for about 50% of the ride, we even managed to arrive on time despite being stuck in traffic for a little while.
On our way back to Boston, the bus was a bit more comfortable but the driver was extremely rude. He yelled at me personally 3 times while I was just quietly sitting in my seat trying to sleep. He also sat at one of the stops for 45 minutes waiting for a single passenger to board. I’m sorry… but if you are 45 minutes late, it’s safe to say you missed the bus. We returned very late and I felt sick to my stomach from sitting on the bus almost an hour longer than we were supposed to.
Overall it’s tolerable but if you have any other option, take it instead.

For short trips I highly recommand, but I just traveled to Miami, FL from Boston, MA.
They have a LOT of stops that are not mentioned anywhere!
Ok I do understand the driver needs to relax a few minutes, but not 30 min every time and no matter what time is, they wake you up because for some reasons you are not alloved to be on the bus. It was 3 am, I was sleeping and the driver yelled to get off. When I asked him «why?» He simply told me «because I said so». Very rude!!!
Because of theese frequent stops, the bus wasn’t at a stop at 8:50 am and we missed the 9:50 am bus to Miami and had to wait 4 hours for another!
Nobody said anything the crew just minded it’s own business! If I wouldn’t go and ask I would have missed the one from 2pm as well.
I tried to refund my tickets, the cashier yelled that is impossible even if it’s their fault. I told them I want to talk with the manager and the officer wanted to arrest me. Wow!
Thank God the superviser in Orlando was very polite and nice and told me to keep my receipt and send it to Greyhound. at the cashier, the lady took my receipt and wanted to throw it! I had to take it from her hands. I’ll never travel with greyhound, nor my friends or family!

If you are late and people who at the gate try to charge you more, go to the info desk and ask for help. That is a scram.

Don’t do it. I see you’re thinking about it… DON’T DO IT!
Exhibit A: Greyhound does not count tickets. Trying to get back to Boston one chilly MLK weekend, we ran out of seats in Montpelier with 4 ½ hours still to go. The driver’s solution? «Uh, you can stand if you want». Folks actually took him up on that offer and stood in the aisle for what turned out to be a 5+ hour drive with traffic. (Luckily, there was a mensch who offered me his seat, otherwise I’d probably vomit everywhere trying to stand for hours on a rickety bus…)
Exhibit B: Drivers do not always show up. This has happened to me twice. The first time, we just waited at South Station and ended up leaving three hours late. The second time, they stopped to «switch» drivers… the first guy left with minimal explanation, and we waited in an empty parking lot until it became clear the replacement was a no-​show. (I actually don’t know how they resolved this situation… I was close enough that I could call a friend to drive me the last hour-​ish leg of the trip.)
Exhibit C: Even if the driver shows up, he may not know where he’s going. This is the age of GPS, dude. Why are you asking the passengers in the front row how to get to I-​89?!
Exhibit D: Even if the driver shows up and knows where he’s going, he will stop for 20 minutes longer than scheduled on his coffee/​smoke break. Or you’ll have a driver but no bus… twice I’ve had rides canceled or delayed due to «mechanical failures».
Thank God they introduced a Megabus line to VT. Megabus wasn’t an option today, so I’ll be mooching a ride to NH to take Dartmouth Coach instead… wish me luck!
Their slogan should be: Greyhound. Not even once.

This a review for the Burlington, VT-​Boston, MA route. Greyhound over tickets and leaves students stranded with no one to contact. The bus station closes at 8pm. Four phone calls later, no one at Greyhound can tell me if another bus is coming to pick up the ticketed passengers left behind. How is that possible? They tell me they can’t call dispatch and they have no way of finding out if a bus has been dispatched. The solution from Maria #3793, a supervisor in Boston who btw refused to give me her last name was to show up the next morning at the Burlington Station and explain the situation. Really!!! Unacceptable. The customer service phone center is a joke. THE WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE.

I’ve never received such poor customer service than with grey hound.
My email server somehow deleted my confirmation email, so I called customer service to see if they could resend the confirmation email to me. They gave me my confirmation number and then told me that the only way I could get my ticket was to physically go to the South Station office to pick it up.
Not knowing any better, that’s exactly what I did, and when I got there, the ticket agent told me to go home because he «didn’t have time» for me. There were very few people behind me in line, none of them seemed to be in a hurry and printing the ticket out would have taken less than one minutes. But instead, he spent that time arguing with me and telling me about how I was WASTING HIS TIME. If you’re going to hire customer service that refuses to help customers, then what is your company paying for?
Long story short, I called customer service again and found out that I could have avoided that whole episode because there actually was a way that I could print out my ticket again from home. I wish someone would have told me that the first time I called, but in context of absolutely infuriating customer service I received in person at South Station, I wasn’t even that mad about the extra trip to the station because at least the person on the phone was nice but just confused.
Don’t buy from greyhound unless you absolutely have to, there are plenty of other bus companies with better price and polite customer service who don’t pretend like you’re asking them for an arm and a leg when you just asking them to print something.

I purchased two tickets from New York to Boston Sept 1. The price was a bit steep but definitely not worth it. While the bus was on route it began to smell like feces. Apparently the company did not bother to change the bathroom filters. It was the most uncomfortable, deplorable ride I’ve ever experienced. I made a complaint to their complaint department for a refund (I also sent a complaint to the attorney’s general office) I was told that they will get back to me in 21 days. I will let you know what happens. Would not recommend this bus company to anyone.

Worst bus experience I have had. Boston to Montréal was supposed to leave at 7AM. Right before we left at 8:35AM, the driver announced that «we didn’t have enough buses»…In addition, people from a later bus managed to get on so not enough seats were available for a few people. One man even offered to buy a seat for $ 400. Lastly, the man throwing, and I literally mean throwing, the bags into the under compartment reused to let me retrieve my bag while waiting for an extra 10 minutes just sitting on the bus. Wish I could give this bus service a lower rating. If there was any other method of getting to Montréal, I would never take greyhound again.

tl;dr: shitty customer service, unreasonable policies.
I’ve taken Greyhound buses before and service was fairly good, so for my trip to NYC from Boston, I booked a 4:15PM bus. Unfortunately, at around 1PM, I realized I wasn’t going to make it because I was caught up at work. So I figured it shouldn’t be a problem to switch my ticket to a later bus, and maybe pay some small fee. Apparently, this is where I was incredibly wrong.
Turns out you can exchange tickets, but for a $ 20 fee. The ticket itself was $ 36 and a $ 20 fee? This was ridiculous; I was basically buying a new ticket. But I had no other choice and resigned to paying the fee. Only problem now was that the exchange policy also states that I had to be at the bus terminal in person to exchange my ticket. Which seems ridiculous to me because if I want a later bus, it’s obviously because I can’t make it on time, and can’t go to the station. But maybe talking to someone who understood my problem would be helpful.
Again, completely wrong. Customer service involved talking to at least 6 different machines/​voice recordings and 2 people, none of which were helpful. The corporate customer service number had a ton of long phone menus and I waited 10 minutes to finally speak with someone who told me she understood my situation but couldn’t do anything about it and that I had to speak to the agents at the station itself.
Calling the South Station numbers was a waste of time; they have their own customer service line, except all it did was redirect me to a different machine for booking a new ticket. I finally tried the «Wait for an agent» option, and waited 5 minutes, only to be redirected back to the corporate customer service. Tried this 4 times, each time with the same result.
I ended up losing my money on the greyhound ticket and just buying a megabus ticket for a later time. I’m sure Greyhound buses can get you from point A to B, but because of their unreasonable policies and awful customer service, I will not be riding with them any time soon.

On a trip back from NYC to Boston this weekend, the bus was packed every seat was full. The driver had the vents in the ceiling open but all of us were sweating, uncomfortable complaining about the heat. He informed us the AC was not working and he was struggling with the heat to. We had to stop the bus for awhile to get out and get fresh air. When we starting driving again it stormed raining causing the water to come in the bus onto me! However, we all agreed we did not want to close the vents as there would be no air circulating on the bus. How could Greyhound send a full bus of people fully knowing the AC was not working. I will be requesting a reimbursement of this awful trip.

They are playing games!
If you want to take bus that is on time, don’t take Greyhound!
We bought tickets for 2am bus from Boston to NYC, we got here at 1 am, and now it’s 3am, I’m still waiting.
They don’t have enought passengers to cover the cost to run the bus, they are trying to put 2 buses together, that’s what they did for 1am bus.
They are lying to say there was traffic, it’s impossible to have traffic at three o’clock i. The morning.
I also looked up my iPhone map, there was no traffic!
I will never trust this company ever again!
AJ

Hours late and the attendant made fun of people when they asked when the bus was coming. Wow. How are they still in business?

This is a review for the Worcester-​Boston Greyhound bus only.
On days that I want to avoid driving — I take the Greyhound bus — to and from Worcester. Boston to Worcester buses generally run every half an hour in the morning, and every hour later in the day. Round trip tickets run from $ 12.50 to $ 22 — depending — I think on how desirable the date and time is for folks. Fridays tend to be the most expensive, Tuesdays the cheapest.
I’ve taken the 7:25 AM bus over 20 times now — and maybe two of those times — we departed more than 5 minutes late. The bus driver often is the same dude — older, white, be-​speckled, balding — and very nice. He’ll let you get on the bus, even if your ticket is for later in the day (I sometimes buy an 8 AM– but jump on the 7:25 if I make it in time), and will help you with your luggage.
Bus gets you to Worcester by 8:30 — The latest I’ve arrived is 8:45, the earlier, 8:10– all depending on traffic. If you get on the 5:30 return bus — expect to get back to Boston — earliest — 6:15PM, latest, 7:15 PM. The evening bus generally is OK — but later in the week traffic through Newton is a bummer.
Buses range in comfort — all of them come with individual plugs so that you can charge your electronics. Some of them have brand new leather seats (usually the Greyhound fleet), others have dingier cloth seats (usually the Peter Pan buses).
Most people respect the no talking ban. Most people sleep or do work quietly. If someone attempts to talk — they generally receive a collective death stare. The bus is generally dark –little to no light other than the sun streaming through the windows. One bathroom in the back — generally clean — for bus standards, but for less adventurous– perhaps hold it in.
Love and Some Hate:
1) Get the Greyhound App — you can order tickets from it really easily, and the tickets are usually A LOT cheaper than what you will find at the Greyhound front desk.
2) Join the Greyhound «Road Rewards Program»
Each one way ticket gets you a point, 10 Points gets you a free companion ticket and 20% off, and 16 points gets you a free round trip to anywhere in the United States.
3. They will not let you board the bus unless you printed your ticket. If you forget to print your ticket — you will get a hard time from the Greyhound booth — but generally they’ll print it for you. My advice? Order will call on the app, print at kiosk.
4. The prices vary a lot. This is incredibly annoying. During spring break, holiday weekends, you’ll see a HUGE bump in prices. Whether you buy from the app or online you also have to absorb a $ 3 processing fee — LAME. I’ve found– the earlier you buy your tickets — the cheaper they’ll be.

If I could give them no stars I would. My daughter took the bus from Burlington Vt to Boston. Bus arrived 3 hours late, leaving them outside in –7 degree weather. Driver was verbally abusive throughout the trip, jumped the curb at the Burlington Airport, crushing luggage, left two girls at a gas station during a rest stop, and, most appallingly, the driver purchased a six pack of beer at a rest stop and DRANK THREE outside the bus before continuing the trip. The passengers on board complained, and he threatened to throw them off the bus. I have REPEATEDLY tried to contact the company about this… the best I have gotten from them is a standard «we are sorry for your inconvenience» boilerplate email.
Disgusting. NEVER AGAIN.

I regularly ride the bus from Boston to Springfield MA, so I have experienced this quite a few times. Although the Greyhound /​Peter Pan monopoly insists that tickets are nonrefundable, and time specific they consistently oversell their 740pm bus to Springfield by about double. The bus never leaves on time, and consistently leaves around a half hour late. The first time this happened the station staff shifted some people onto the 800pm bus, which actually leaves on time, but the second time the station staff chose to do some thing absolutely deplorable.
A group of approximately thirty Amish were traveling on the route to points west, and around half of them made it on in the initial load. The second half of the group quietly accepted their fate, and waited to see what would happen while the rest of the civilians started shouting, complaining, and generally being frustrated that that had paid for a ticket, and would not receive the service. Rightly so, they were angry. In response the bus driver actually ejected the rest of the Amish from the bus to make room for the rest of us, so their whole group was just left standing in the bus terminal, holding their luggage and children with no recourse.
I am not sure about you, but I am not OK with a company that takes advantage of a pious, and well mannered group to make money, and tells them to wait for the next time Greyhound deigns to drive their route again. I expect that the Amish are not active on social media, so I have posted this on their behalf, not cool Greyhound, not cool.

Although I’m pretty sure they played a major role in shutting down all the chinatown bus services from Boston to NY, however, their fleet has greatly improved.
The past few times I took Boston to NY and vice versa express bus, they’ve been new with leather seats, plugs, wifi and a cup holder.
I still would prefer Fung Wah, since the NY drop off was more convienent for me but the new buses are nice and are only comparable to Bolt bus which is a bit pricer and now has a very annoying updated location in NYC.

Greyhound may be an icon of long-​distance travel, but it’s an icon that has failed to move forward and is beaten hands-​down by megabus, boltbus and others.
Greyhound is generally more expensive than these alternatives (probably because they have overheads on all the buildings they needlessly own) and doesn’t have as many direct routes (e.g., Philly to Boston involves an hour-​long NYC layover, but is direct with Bolt or Mega). Some of their buses can have nice new leather seats but it can be pretty hit and miss on whether you’ll be impressed with the newness or worried about arriving at your destination in something that could have been the first bus prototype.
Another annoyance is that their ticket number system (lower number = board earlier = get your choice of seat) is sometimes not followed in NYC Penn Station, so you might find yourself at the end of a NYC line when you’d be first if boarding elsewhere.
OH and I did mention their exchange fee? No? Well they charge $ 20 to make a change. In comparison, Megabus charges $ 1.50. That’s THIRTEEN TIMES the charge. Stay classy Greyhound.
The ONE good thing is their frequent schedules — multiple times of day across most days of the week means that people with restricted schedules will be very likely to find a suitable bus here, but not with other companies. This really is the only reason I reluctantly ride greyhound.