THE new operators of East Coast trains have defended a decision to scrap its old customer loyalty scheme.

Stagecoach and Virgin, who will run the new Virgin Trains East Coast franchise from Sunday, are replacing the existing scheme on that day with Nectar.

Passengers on the route from York to London and Edinburgh will also be given an additional choice of collecting points with Virgin Atlantic's Flying Club.

The change by the York-based train operator has come under fire from campaigners who launched a website, Save East Coast Rewards, in the hope of convincing the new franchise operators that the existing loyalty scheme was worth keeping.

They have claimed passengers will enjoy far fewer benefits with Nectar and suggested the old loyalty scheme should be adjusted rather than abolished.

But a spokeswoman for Stagecoach and Virgin said Nectar had been carefully chosen to ensure it provided the opportunity for everyone to benefit from travelling with the company, whether they were regular travellers or one-off leisure customers.

"Before taking the decision to introduce the Nectar scheme, we used a market research company to survey around 2,000 East Coast passengers and we also held focus groups with existing customers," she said.

"The results demonstrated that Nectar was by far the most popular loyalty scheme amongst those people who took part in the research. Customers and non-customers liked the fact that Nectar linked into a reward scheme that they already had.

"The change benefits millions of customers every year who will now be able to enjoy the bonus of Nectar or Flying Club points when buying tickets for travel with Virgin Trains East Coast."

Stagecoach and Virgin have been awarded an eight-year franchise to run the flagship route.

Trains have been operated by the nationalised company East Coast since 2009, when the last franchisee, National Express, pulled out after running into serious financial difficulties.

Prior to National Express, the line was run by Sea Containers, who operated it as GNER from1996 until it also ran into financial problems in 2006.