Megabus vs National Express

A question about : Megabus vs National Express

I need to travel from Manchester to London on 3rd May (the Sunday of the Bank Holiday weekend) but, unfortunately, there are major engineering works on the line and Virgin aren't running any trains to London so I'm looking at coaches and have a few questions:

1) Are National Express and Megabus my main options or are there any other coach companies I should look at?

2) Are Megabus pretty much always cheaper than National Express? (National Express are already selling tickets for that date with the warning that the lowest price tickets will sell out if I don't buy soon but Megabus don't appear to start selling tickets until nearer the date so I can't really compare the two!)

3) Is one better to travel with than the other? (National Express's coach station in Manchester is a bit more convenient for me. The journey lengths of the fastest journeys both look okay to me. Does one have better coaches? Is one more reliable etc? As it'll be a lot cheaper than travelling by train anyway, I don't mind paying a bit more for a better service but I don't want to pay extra money needlessly.)

Thanks.

Best answers:

• The odd thing about your question is that the Virgin Trains web site shows a service operating between Manchester and London on 3rd May, and the National Rail web site does not list any engineering works affecting that route on that date.
  What is your source of information that the train service will be disrupted?
• That's strange! When I first searched for train times (knowing the cheap fares wouldn't be available yet anyway), the websites I tried (thetrainline and at least one other) didn't show any journeys on the Sunday and were suggesting early morning journeys the following day - and I'm sure I read that there was some engineering work going on so thought that was the reason. However, I can now see journey times on thetrainline.com for the Sunday so either engineering works been cancelled or they have only just added journey information for that date. Oh well, that solves that problem! Thanks!