Megabus

Extremely unreliable. Routinely late by 2 – 4 hours. The ‘Wifi On-​Board’ service works intermittently or does not work at all. Take it if you are in college and don’t care if you are 3 – 4 hours late. Do not take it if time is of essence.

DO NOT RIDE THE MEGA BUS. The greyhound is the most reliable bus. Me and 3 other passengers were at the departure location 20 min early and we were told by the loader to leave from infront of the bus, take our bags with us and go inside to check in. We were confused but we did as we were told and watched the bus leave. We thought there was another bus because there were other people in line with us. Now we are stuck and have to pay out of our pocket for another ticket. They are not be trusted and they are not always the cheapest.

We rode the Megabus up to Chicago and it was a great experience but as I understand, this was rare to not have any rude or obnoxious jerks on the bus.
Now we’re on our way back and again we seem to be on a bus full of nice people.
The drivers for both ways have been very friendly and approachable. Also seem like good drivers.
Now the bad… IT’S FREEZING ON THIS BUS! Also, if you’re tall, don’t do this. The seats are not very spacious. My girlfriend is short and brought a blanket so she thinks it’s great.

Stay away from this company.
I ordered a ticket for my friend stranded in St Louis, he had no money and his phone was dead. I gave him the order number and the ticket was in his name. They wouldn’t let him board the bus because they said he needed not the order number but the reservation number which was 30 digits long.
The customer service person on the phone said only a customer service person in St Louis is the only person who would know the order number and there are none. But there was one.

One of my friends took a Megabus to Chicago today to pick up his girlfriend from the O’Hare airport. The bus left 20 minutes late. Then there was an unscheduled stop that lasted 20 minutes. Then the scheduled stop lasted 20 minutes longer than it was supposed to.
To top it all off, the bus driver swerved into an 18 wheeler, and the bus had to pull over and wait for repairs. The driver was rude, and did not handle the situation well at all. My friend ended up taking a cab the remaining 100 miles, which cost him over $ 100. The only thing that MegaBus had to offer was a good cheap rate, and he still ended up having to pay for a cab.
This is absolutely ridiculous and of course nothing will happen, but it just doesnt seem that damn difficult to drive a bus to Chicago and get it there on time. Not to mention avoid hitting 18 wheelers, but that’s just my opinion.
I would probably never take a bus to begin with, but I can assure you that I won’t ever be taking a MegaBus in the future.

Writing this from the megabus now. Overbooked the damn bus from Memphis to st. Louis, only 6 of the power plugs work on the upper deck. And the staff is rude as shit! There’s absolutely no need for this old man to come up and lecture the entire upper deck like we’re 5 year olds because someone mistakenly forgot to turn their ringer off.
Power tripping old man needs to check his attitude. I’m 45, not 5, and I don’t appreciate someone that should be at home eating his hot cereal and nursing his aching hip, tell everyone about how he’d take their toys away if they didn’t follow his rudeness. This dumb little scolding went on for 5 minutes.
Fuck megabus. Amtrak is worth the money. I’m done with this rolling Green Mile bullshit. Your staff is rude, your buses are broken down, and you’re ability to keep a schedule is total shit.

Megabus proved to be a horrible service. On the way back from a trip to Chicago, the bus hit something and broke down. The driver refused to communicate with passengers, give them status updates, or even offer any refunds or other compensation. Instead of sending another bus to pick up the passengers and get them on their way… the company sent a MECHANIC, so all passengers had to wait while the mechanic fixed the bus (all of this, of course, took a ridiculous amount if time). I understand eventually breakdowns will happen — but they need to COMMUNICATE and think about the time of their passengers instead of just their operational costs! Very un satisfied as a customer — will never again use their service.

I have been using Megabus since I start high school, I am a senior in college now. Over this past couple days I have received nothing but bad service, bad customer service, and bad attitudes from Megabus.
Once arriving to my bus on ⁸⁄₂₀ the bus driver told me to set my «s**t down» (meaning my luggage). I ignored his comment and proceeded to ask what bus this was because I was barely making it to the bus and there were 2 other buses there. He rudely responded «what does it look like, its going to St. Louis». Despite the utterly rude experience I had that day I wasn’t going to make a big deal about it. Until I had my experiences today.
I understand that delays happen, it is life but this is completely ridiculous. My bus was suppose to leave at 4:20pm I received an email stating that there was a 4 hour delay. Then I got another email stating my bus wouldn’t be in St. Louis until 9:15pm. So, 9:30 comes still no bus. I call customer service and they tell me «the next bus isn’t suppose to come for another 5 hours». I explained that this was impossible because my rescheduled bus was suppose to come at 9:15 and it is now 9:30. The customer service lady replied and said «oh well it will be there at 9:30». Great help right? I waited for another 20 minutes and finally a bus pulls up. I get out the car and the bus driver states to everybody (including people that have been waiting outside in 104 degree heat since 9:30am) that she wasn’t driving to Chicago and got back in the bus. It wasn’t until people demanded answers that she explained that she wasn’t the bus that was suppose to be driving to Chicago that bus still isn’t here. So yet again I call Megabus customer service, mind you it is now 10pm, and ask for an update on the bus. They put me on hold for another 25 minutes. Once FINALLY coming back they say «oh it should be coming in the next 30 minutes». I told them forget it I will not be getting on the bus and to make sure I am completely refunded for my trip, went up the street and got a ticket for the next train at 4:45am. The entire $ 25. I don’t care how cheap it was, nothing is worth the complete and utter disrespect, unorganized, and just all around awful customer service.
I will not be using Megabus anymore. I rather spend the same amount for Amtrak which goes the same amount of places, if not more.

So, once again, I must say that Megabus is Mega-​Bullshit. Getting on the bus going back was even more painful than going forward. The bus was an hour late, meaning that this great teeming throng of people were milling about, while the requisite drunks and/​or crazies were loudly making their presence known. Although I honestly don’t blame anyone for drinking through this experience, and if I had some alcohol, I’d probably be drinking it myself.
The Megabus stops are completely disorganized – just a single bus stop as if you were riding a city bus. No terminal, no lines, no nothing. Compare this to Greyhound which has comfortable, air-​conditioned terminals, organized lines and gates, etc, etc. Plus their seats are more comfortable, and there’s a lot more room – Megabus has no overhead compartments, so you have to stash your stuff under your feet.
And of course, the wi-​fi blocks any and all streaming content. This means no podcasts, no Spotify, no YouTube, no nothing. Nothing to while away the hours while it takes twice as long or more to get to where you are going.
I will never, ever, ever ride Megabus again.

I decided to give Megabus a shot last year after finding that I could get from STL to Milwaukee and back for under $ 40. Greyhound was triple that, and Amtrak was over $ 100.
My bus left about an hour late (despite arriving to the stop 30 minutes early) and was ridiculously hot. Still, the trip was pretty uneventful. Before using Megabus for the first time, I had a strange misconception that it attracted more civilized individuals than Greyhound.
Noooo buddy. Same old shit.
Anyway, all of my trips went off without a hitch, provided you exclude the sauna like conditions and ill-​mannered passengers. I was a bit late getting into Chicago, but since I had a long layover, it worked out.
…and that is the one thing that pisses me off about Megabus: their connection policy. I haven’t ran into issues with it only because I deliberately made sure to have more than 2 hours for each connection (which resulted in 5 hour layovers). If you miss your connection on Megabus – whether it’s Megabus’ fault, the weather, traffic, whatever – they explicitly told me I would NOT BE ALLOWED ON THE NEXT BUS (regardless of how many seats went unsold) unless I bought an extra ticket before the new bus arrived at the stop.
What. The. Fuck. Even the pissants at Greyhound have more integrity than that!

I like having MegaBus in St. Louis as another transportation option at a good value. The pickup and drop off at Union Station is convenient as there is a Metro Link stop right nearby.
I have used this service many times to go back and forth from Chicago. I started using this service when it first came to town. Back then the buses were usually not even half full. Nowadays, the buses fill up and on weekends or holidays they can sell out.
From St. Louis, MegaBus goes to Kansas City with a stop in Columbia, Memphis with a stop at SEMO (I believe), and Chicago with a stop in Normal, IL.
Chicago is the hub for MegaBus. A lot of other buses can be caught at Union Station in Chicago.
My advise is to purchase your tickets as early as possible to get the best price.
Also, MegaBus seems to run on time at least as much, if not more than, the Amtrak like to Chicago. I have had one or two issues with late buses coming back from Chicago with MegaBus but overall its about a 5 ½ hour trip with one 30 min stop in McLean, IL at a truckstop with a McDonalds and Subway near by and sometimes a drop off at the Normal, IL stop.

Last minute departure changes and mediocre customer service… long story short — MegaBus was the bane of my existence this weekend! As a matter of fact this review is being written from an Amtrak because MegaBus failed to deliver on the second half of my scheduled trip.
So the long story… a few weeks ago I booked a bus from STL to Chicago for Friday, which was supposed to leave at 12:20PM. On Thursday I got an e-​mail stating that the bus would now be leaving at 4:00PM, which would get me to Chicago too late for my Friday night show (which started at 7:30PM). I rolled with the punches and took off some more time from work and got my ticket switched to the 9:30AM departure, getting me to Chicago around 2:30PM (in plenty of time to make it to the show). Besides the rescheduling, the ride was pretty pleasant. The driver was professional, I had a whole seat to myself, and the bathrooms weren’t too disgusting.
My return bus was a different story., it was scheduled to leave Chicago at 11:30AM on Sunday morning. Because my ride there was rescheduled, I called MegaBus on Saturday to double check that the bus was still scheduled to leave at 11:30AM…the customer service lady gave me the green light and told me everything looked good and to get to the bus stop around 11:00AM. I arrived at the stop and noticed that there weren’t many people there and soon found out that my bus was rescheduled and had left 2 hours earlier at 9:30AM. I was not notified and was now stranded in Chicago! The MegaBus employee at the stop had me call customer service and reschedule for a 5:30PM ticket back to STL, leaving me with 6 hours to kill and a later night than I had been expecting. Then plan B presented itself and I ended up hopping on an Amtrak that left around 1:45PM, thanks to a guy in the same situation as me (the big difference was that he had to make it back in time for a night shift). We both ended up getting a refund from MegaBus for our return journey, but my first experience with MegaBus left a sour taste in my mouth so I won’t be using their services again. I would recommend Amtrak or just driving yourself… avoid MegaBus and the headaches they cause!

I Loved how cheap it was. I got a round trip ticket to Chicago for $ 11. Only a couple stops and gets there relatively quick. On the trip down the driver had the heat up so high on the second tier that the windows all fogged up and it was like a sauna! On the bus back the wifi didn’t work. I guess you get what you pay for.

If there was a way to give them zero stars I sure would. They are disrespectful and unprofessional as if you are on a free bus. Worst I have ever seen. Next time I will spend the extra money. Not worth it at all!

If there were zero stars if give it that. It took 8 hours to get to Chicago from saint louis because our ghetto bus driver got lost in both cities. Plus it was thirty minutes late to begin with. I will never use this again. You definitely get what you pay for.

Was very impressed with Megabus. Bus was on time, driver provided clear instructions and everyone boarded smoothly. I took a night trip from Chicago to St. Louis and I would have appreciated more comfortable seating. Kind of hard to sleep in the basic bus seating. Outside of that it’s a great service at an unbeatable price. Would not hesitate to use again. Certainly beats Greyhound.

Cheap, quick, and no worries when on the ride. Dependable and the bus even has outlet plugs for electronics. A lot more than I expected.
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The price can’t be beat by far but there will be alot of different personalities on this trip so expect it. If you don’t need to travel on the weekend then leave a day ahead the buses seem to be alittle bit less crowded during the week, and going to Chicago from St. Louis, that’s when students are traveling back and forth to school so it maybe be crowded.
Looking forward to seeing where else Megabus can take me!

Not only is it chaotic to board, our driver turned around to pick up a late passenger. Does a train, plain, or any other mass transit do that?
NO!
Forget the price if you are needing reliability.

Megabus is usually the cheapest way to get from St. Louis to Chicago. All tickets have to be purchased on-​line and they have a limited departure schedule, but for $ 1-​$ 25 average one way ticket direct from St. Louis Union Station to Chicago Union Station, you can’t really beat it. They also travel from St. Louis to Normal — IL, Kansas City — MO, and Columbia — MO.
Positives are price. Can’t beat it.
Negatives are that they say they offer wi-​fi, but you usually can’t get a signal between St. Louis and Chicago. There is no «Ticket Agent» to talk to. So, your on-​line purchase and the driver are it, and sometimes he’s a grump. The stop is on 20^th street between St. Louis Union Station and Maggie O’Brien’s, but there is no real stop marker. So, stand around and hope for the best until the bus arrives. There is no real order before the bus comes. So be prepared for the a-​hole next to you to jump in line when the bus pulls up to the curb. Seating is first come, first served. Mostly students and International travelers.
Worth it for the price.