Great Northern seat reservations

[arb]

I was looking at advance fares from deepest Cornwall to Cambridge in early October, and I noticed that GWR's site says that I must reserve a seat for the King's Cross to Cambridge leg of this journey. I've never seen seat reservations on Great Northern trains before. How new is this? I've always wanted to keep flexibility in long-distance travel plans in the last year or so, and therefore have only been using walk-up tickets in the recent past, not advances.

I found an old thread https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/thameslink-seat-reservations.222628/ from 2021 which said Thameslink were introducing seat reservations, but notes that Great Northern hadn't done so.

Am I correct that this means I must strictly follow a journey plan on an advance ticket which gives me approximately 1 hour to connect from Paddington to King's Cross? Even though I can quite happily do the transfer under 30 minutes and previously have almost always made it onto an earlier Great Northern train than stated in the booking? That will make long-distance journeys very annoying if so.

Are there any workarounds to get myself a booking with the shorter connection time? I know that National Rail Enquiries has the option to allow less time to transfer through London, but I've never been able to get that to propagate to a "real" booking site. For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not fussed about being able to claim Delay Repay if I miss the earlier connection by 1 minute. I quite happily accept that a 20-30 minute connection across London isn't suitable for everyone. I just don't want an RPI asking me why I'm on an earlier train when I do get across London quickly enough to catch the earlier train!

 

[JonathanH]

Am I correct that this means I must strictly follow a journey plan on an advance ticket which gives me approximately 1 hour to connect from Paddington to King's Cross?

Yes, you must catch the booked trains strictly unless there is disruption that makes that not possible.

It does look like the Ely / Kings Lynn trains have been switched to being reservable, as well as the Thameslink trains. A quick search of fares for Cambridge and Kings Lynn to London doesn't show any 'Great Northern only' advances so the only people this impacts are those using the trains for connections.

 

[JBuchananGB]

You could book from Cornwall to London Zone 1 to cover Kings Cross (or London Paddington if advances not available to Zone 1), and a separate flexible ticket from there to Cambridge. A compromise, by paying more for the flexibility while getting the benefit of the advance fare for the majority of the journey.

 

[Hadders]

Seat reservations on GN and Thameslink services are a right pain.

They've been on Thameslink for a couple of years but, thankfully there aren't any Advance fares. There really is no need for them and getting people to travel on their booked train would be practically unenforceable given that the services are DOO and get very busy.

The only reason I can think for having reservations is to do with restricting availability of Advance tickets where GTR is the '& connections' part.

 

[Mike395]

There are a few Advance fares available Thameslink-side but only on specific flows e.g. Bedford-Brighton.

 

[Haywain]

There really is no need for them and getting people to travel on their booked train would be practically unenforceable given that the services are DOO and get very busy.

When I recently used an Advance ticket from a north Thameslink station, the ticket was rejected at the barrier and the staff member wanted to check the booked time before allowing us through.

 

[Hadders]

When I recently used an Advance ticket from a north Thameslink station, the ticket was rejected at the barrier and the staff member wanted to check the booked time before allowing us through.

That's normal at Stevenage for any Advance ticket (a bit of a pain given LNER call there) but you couldn't realistically do checks at St Pancras or London Bridge.

I complained to GTR about seat reservations and after denying they were available told me it was go that they could 'guarantee me a seat on the train'. Really, on a Class 700? I hadn't got the heart to reply....

 

[Haywain]

you couldn't realistically do checks at St Pancras or London Bridge.

And even less so at Farringdon!

 

[JonathanH]

There are a few Advance fares available Thameslink-side but only on specific flows e.g. Bedford-Brighton.

Yes, and Cambridge / Stevenage to Gatwick Airport. Is there any way of searching for all "AP Thameslink only' flows?

The only reason I can think for having reservations is to do with restricting availability of Advance tickets where GTR is the '& connections' part.

Yes, and those examples which have been reported in the past of tickets from Norwich to the South and West only having reservations on SWR and GWR where they have been timed on the Norwich to Cambridge and Cambridge to Kings Cross services.

 

[Hadders]

And even less so at Farringdon!

Well quite!

Yes, and Cambridge / Stevenage to Gatwick Airport. Is there any way of searching for all "AP Thameslink only' flows?


Yes, and those examples which have been reported in the past of tickets from Norwich to the South and West only having reservations on SWR and GWR where they have been timed on the Norwich to Cambridge and Cambridge to Kings Cross services.

The problem comes with Advance fares from places like Stevenage to places like for example Cardiff where the Thameslink train to London is the connecting service.

I suspect the reservation is simply a method to restrict the availability of these tickets, possibly because GTR feel they don't get enough of the fare allocation? I don't know enough about how that works so perhaps someone more knowledgable can comment?

Also, taking my example of Stevenage to Cardiff many people would consider the minimum connection time across London to be too tight and would wish to take an earlier train, ehich is very sensible. We know you can manipulate booking sites to give extra interchange time but most people don't know that. You then end up with people being penalised simply for travelling on an earlier connecting service than booked - on a service where there are generally 4 fast and 2 semi-fast trains an hour as well as 2 LNER trains and 2 'all shacks'.

Incidentally, there is an easement that allows any LNER train to be used between Stevenage and London if it is a connecting service on an Advance ticket via London. So you could have the ridiculous situation of someone travelling on a different train to their booked train having their details taken by a GTR RPI but being allowed to travel perfectly legitimately with LNER!

 

[Haywain]

I suspect the reservation is simply a method to restrict the availability of these tickets, possibly because GTR feel they don't get enough of the fare allocation? I don't know enough about how that works so perhaps someone more knowledgable can comment?

I can't claim more knowledge on this but I think it is just to give them the ability to offer their own Advances and any impact on longer distance tickets is accidental (or hasn't been considered properly).

 

[paul1609]

I can't claim more knowledge on this but I think it is just to give them the ability to offer their own Advances and any impact on longer distance tickets is accidental (or hasn't been considered properly).

I was told by a GTR pricing manager some years ago that the reason why the original Southern batch of advance tickets was introduced was because of peak hour revenue abstraction by one of LNERs predecessors with a deliberate pricing of Brighton to Peterborough Advances, basically people bought the advance ticket and used it for Brighton to London and threw away the Peterborough portion. I believe it also affected Portsmouth to London flows on SWTs as was. If you look at the Brighton to Peterborough advance tickets on br fares there seem to be far too many tiers for what probably isn't that big a flow which does seem to add some credence to his statement. I presume adding Thameslink advances to the same destinations is a logical extension.