Via Railâs patriotic promotion to celebrate Canadaâs 150th birthday with the nationâs youth certainly went off the tracks.
The offer â unlimited travel in July for those aged 12 to 25 for $150 â went live on Tuesday.
Myriam Djilane, 25, thought it was âa great way to celebrate Canada, to encourage young people to go travel across their own country because most of us donât travel across our own country because itâs too expensive.â
But when she tried to jump on board to buy a ticket, the website crashed.
âVery frustrating. I kept refreshing. I had two computers going on.â
She tried to call, too. No luck.
Via reassured panicked riders on social media that there was an unlimited number of discounted passes available and they wouldnât run out. But by early Thursday morning it announced there was a cap on the special tickets.
âBon voyage!â the company tweeted. âAll the Canada 150 Youth Passes have been sold. 1,867 young travellers will discover Canada this summer.â
Get it? In honour of Confederation. But with almost 6 million Canadians between 12 and 25, odds were lottery-like slim to get a pass. Many took to Twitter to vent their frustration using #ViaFail.
Public relations professor Bernard Gauthier said the promotion had âenormous potentialâ but he gives the company a D on execution. It should have been clear from the start that passes were limited, he says. Instead, Via left young people feeling betrayed.
âWith Millennials, youâve got a generation of consumers now who are a little more guarded. Theyâre more cynical and I think to disappoint that generation right now could be very costly for them in the long run,â said Gauthier, who teaches at Conestoga College.
Via didnât answer questions about their handling of the promotion but did say it had to limit passes due to train capacity. It also boosted the number of golden tickets to 4,000 but they were sold out before dawn Thursday.