Changing advance seats ~ £10 fee still apply?

[mullin]

Hello,

I have purchased some advance tickets for a journey to / from London in April. The ticket clerk has issued seat reservations, but upon getting home and seeing where the seats are positioned (no window view) I wished to change them.

Took the tickets back yesterday and was told that to change a seat reservation comes with a £10 admin fee and I would have to pay the difference in price if the advance ticket band had gone up in price.

The previous time I did this, I simply took the tickets to a window and had the reservations changed there and then for no fee.


So my question is... who was correct? Have I been done a favour in the past by the ticket clerk or does the £10 fee apply to this scenario??

 

[dvboy]

Just sit somewhere else that isn't reserved.

 

[island]

It is correct that there is a £10 admin fee to change an Advance ticket, including changing the seat. I don't know whether there should also be an excess to the lowest now available price if you stay on the same train, though.

In reality, the requirement that you sit in the specified seat is almost never enforced; just choose another free seat when on board.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

If you wish to change the seat before travel it is a £10 admin fee per seat change. If you make the change onboard you may not be charged if the guard believes there is enough space available, but they could still charge £10 per seat change if they were so inclined.

In times gone by (a couple of years back IIRC) there was no direct stipulation that a fee was to be paid and 'a change of travel plans' was only loosely defined, now, however, there is a FAQ that tells staff that it is 'a change of travel plans', hence the admin fee now applying.

 

[barrykas]

It is correct that there is a £10 admin fee to change an Advance ticket, including changing the seat. I don't know whether there should also be an excess to the lowest now available price if you stay on the same train, though.

If you wish to change the reservation and there are no seats remaining at the price already paid, you have two basic options:

1. Excess to the cheapest available fare, plus £10 fee
2. Attempt to cancel the original reservations and hope that releases the seats back into the cheaper ticket's quota

There's no guarantee that Option 2 will have the desired effect, which would leave the clerk wide open to a complaint if the passenger decided they didn't want to change after all, as their ticket would no longer be valid due to the lack of reservations.

 

[Olympian]

Personally I would just ring somewhere like ScotRail telesales and ask them to book you some seats to go with tickets you've already purchased elsewhere. Of course you still need to travel on the correct train(s) as per the original reservations but I've never yet been charged by them for just making seat reservations and they've even given me the specific seats I was after if they were still available and have never quibbled about most of my seat bookings being for journeys wholly outside of Scotland. Very helpful staff there.

 

[island]

If you wish to change the reservation and there are no seats remaining at the price already paid, you have two basic options:

1. Excess to the cheapest available fare, plus £10 fee
2. Attempt to cancel the original reservations and hope that releases the seats back into the cheaper ticket's quota

There's no guarantee that Option 2 will have the desired effect, which would leave the clerk wide open to a complaint if the passenger decided they didn't want to change after all, as their ticket would no longer be valid due to the lack of reservations.

3. Add a new walk-up ticket to the basket with a reservation in the new seat. Add a £10 fee from the supplements menu. Delete the walk-up ticket.

 

[barrykas]

3. Add a new walk-up ticket to the basket with a reservation in the new seat. Add a £10 fee from the supplements menu. Delete the walk-up ticket.

The only problem with doing that is that the new reservation would come from the wrong quota, though admittedly it's unlikely to be picked up on train.

Theoretically the retailer could get a slap on the wrist for doing it (particularly if Greater Anglia or Great Western are involved, where there's supposed to be a charge for seat reservations under certain circumstances and both TOCs claim to check to ensure it's been charged).

 

[island]

Since it's the same train, surely there's no quote issues to be worried about?

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Well, technically you'd be giving two reservations for one ticket (not allowed) and options 1 and 2 may have an effect on quota.

 

[yorksrob]

I would suggest mooching around in the buffet car until the tickets had been checked/for a bit. At least you can spend your ten pounds on something more worthwhile.

 

[barrykas]

Since it's the same train, surely there's no quote issues to be worried about?

That depends on how the TOC have configured their quotas! Unlike the good old days of CRS where they just allocated <x> seats for a given quota for a given flow, NRS allegedly allows them to graduate pricing according to how far in advance you book as well.

So, for example, TOC A running from London to Birmingham might set their quotas such that a given train had 10 tickets priced at £6, 20 at £9, 30 at £12, and so on, allowing the cheapest tickets to be sold first, then the next cheapest.

TOC B, on the other hand, might set them such that those £6 tickets could only be bought up to a week before travel, then the £9 ticket would become the cheapest regardless of whether there had been any £6 tickets left, and so on.

 

[mullin]

Cheers for all the helpful replies everyone. I think it was Island who posted above about the shopping basket, keep adding journeys till you find a seat you are happy with - I usually do this, just this time I had travel vouchers that needed using.

Looks like I'll just have to try and board early. Don't fancy a 2 hour journey with a piece of plastic to stare at the whole way!!

 

[Olympian]

Looks like I'll just have to try and board early. Don't fancy a 2 hour journey with a piece of plastic to stare at the whole way!!

Did you try ringing ScotRail telesales as I suggested above and ask them to make seat reservations to go with some existing tickets you've already purchased?

 

[island]

Cheers for all the helpful replies everyone. I think it was Island who posted above about the shopping basket, keep adding journeys till you find a seat you are happy with - I usually do this, just this time I had travel vouchers that needed using.

For future reference, you can ask for specific seats when you book in person, or specify preferences. Some clerks don't like putting in for a specific seat number because on certain TISs they can't pick the seat from a list, only key in "B32" and the system says that is or isn't available. If you ask for several successive unavailable seats you wind up the clerk and the queue.

 

[Starmill]

I've had this problem before, but my solution may not be all that helpful to you...

I phoned up and complained that I'd been given seats which did not meet the requirements I'd stipulated (i.e.window) - okay I know that's not true technically because it was a "window" seat not "a seat with a view", but there's no need to mention that.

They agreed to refund my tickets by RTV which they then posted to me!