Anyone had issues with BPW recently? Mate of mine trying to book for a group in May. Notwithstanding fairly poor issues around customer service – calls and emails not returned, phones not answered – having been told to book through site for bikes and uplift, each time he tries he gets to payment stage to be told basket is empty. Anyone else experienced this? Is there an ongoing issue?
Cheers

Never had a problem booking for groups of around 10.

That’s what I’ve heard. Everyone I know who’s used them before hasn’t had an issue. Slightly larger group this 18 uplifts, 13 bikes – frustrating as we’re committed to one date and it already seems to be full 3 months in advance (albeit our ‘booking’ seems to be part of that). Keep trying I guess. Like trying to get Glastonbury (or Ard Rock) tickets!

I Had a bit of a faff the other day. Try logging into your account before booking – I think that’s what worked for me.
Hth
Marko

Cheers Marko, will give that a try. Last time I checked it was showing no availability for the bikes/uplifts we wanted so hoping it’s all trapped in there somewhere..

Bump

Bikes have come back onto the site, uplift showing as fully booked. Hopefully I’ll be able to talk to someone at 11am when they open up, at the moment this is somewhat disappointing as spent ages getting people together etc

If I remember correctly the staff at the centre have no control over the website booking, its handled off site due to poor internet or something.

I always struggle to get people to understand how quick it books out.

Thanks Podge, appreciate that, what’s galling (at this point anyway) is that we had all uplifts and bikes selected and ready to go, but each time we got to payment it said “Empty Cart” and threw us out. That indicates that it was there when we wanted to book it and then just threw us out.

EDIT – We’ve now spoken to them and established that you can’t book more than 10 bikes at a time on the website. But we spoke to them before trying to make the booking and nobody mentioned this and it says nothing about it on the site. It also doesn’t allow you to book the group package (bike hire + lunch + uplift) that they push you towards on the site, though again nobody told us that. As we bundled the uplift booking with the bike booking it threw the whole lot out. Not sure whether we’ll be able to get the uplift now..
We have emailed them as requested just now, lets see what happens..

And a final update:

We’ve spoken to them on the phone and managed to confirm everything. Hooray! In fairness the person that my mate spoke to was very helpful and pulled it all together. All’s well that ends well.

However, I can’t help but think they’re missing a trick here. They need to sort out how they manage group bookings and their website needs to be clear about what it will and won’t accept, otherwise they’re going to end up losing business, which would be a shame as they have created such a great facility

The website and booking might not be slick but they sell out 3 months in advance, I don’t think they are hugely bothered about losing business

The website and booking might not be slick but they sell out the uplift on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays 3 months in advance – FTFY

I’m sure they’e doing very well and like I said, only heard good reports of the place from those who’ve been. However, I’m sure that their business plan includes group bookings, particularly corporate to fill out the more fallow mid week slots. I’ve booked corporate stuff before and would have given them about four minutes before I’d got pee’d off and gone elsewhere. As it was we near as dammit walked away and we’re worth £1500 to them. If they can afford to pass up that kind of money good luck to them, but in my mind it ain’t gonna help drive long-term success.

Anyway they sorted it out, but with someone less persistent they would have lost the booking

they sell out 3 months in advance, I don’t think they are hugely bothered about losing business

They’d be absolutely raking it in if they had the uplift capacity to actually deal with weekend demand.

What’s the experience like on single uplift tickets these days? Do you just end up queuing for ages?