TfW 1st class upgrades

[AdamWW]

Does anyone know what the prices are for 1st class upgrades on the TfW Mk 4 services?

The web site mentions on-train upgrades (as well as seatfrog - isn't that some kind of auction site?) but doesn't appear to have prices.

 

[WirralLine]

Does anyone know what the prices are for 1st class upgrades on the TfW Mk 4 services?

The web site mentions on-train upgrades (as well as seatfrog - isn't that some kind of auction site?) but doesn't appear to have prices.

If you search BR fares you can find them. A quick search for Chester to Cardiff shows a under First Class single fares a "TFW Weekend First" (WW1) for £10.

At the bottom of the page below all the advances under "Other Fares" there is a "Weekday First" Premier Class Upgrade (PCU) for £20.

 

[Lewisham2221]

Does anyone know what the prices are for 1st class upgrades on the TfW Mk 4 services?

The web site mentions on-train upgrades (as well as seatfrog - isn't that some kind of auction site?) but doesn't appear to have prices.

Currently still £10 at weekends. £10/15/20 on weekdays, depending on distance travelled.

 

[AllWork]

Jumping on this thread - do you just sit down in first and wait for the conductor to buy the upgrade?

And am I right in that it is only a nicer seat now, with any food & drink being another additional purchase. Such a shame as the old Business Class option was a great value upgrade.

 

[MP393]

Jumping on this thread - do you just sit down in first and wait for the conductor to buy the upgrade?

And am I right in that it is only a nicer seat now, with any food & drink being another additional purchase. Such a shame as the old Business Class option was a great value upgrade.

Yes just sit in and you can pay the upgrade to the guard. Alternatively download the “Seatfrog” app if you so wish, they can often have good deals on upgrades. Tea/Coffee/Juice & Water is complimentary, as are salted crisps and shortbread. Meals etc or any additional snacks are extra cost.

 

[AllWork]

Yes just sit in and you can pay the upgrade to the guard. Alternatively download the “Seatfrog” app if you so wish, they can often have good deals on upgrades. Tea/Coffee/Juice & Water is complimentary, as are salted crisps and shortbread. Meals etc or any additional snacks are extra cost.

Thanks so much. I see Seatfrog charge £3 on top of the cost which isn’t great. I’m not sure £15 (Seatfrog minimum) is worth it for coffee and biscuits….

 

[sh24]

The value proposition is the bigger and more comfortable seat, space to work, peace and quiet etc.

 

[AllWork]

The value proposition is the bigger and more comfortable seat, space to work, peace and quiet etc.

I see that on Avanti and similar services but the loco hauled TfW ones are very spacious in normal seats I find

 

[Grizzly]

Does anyone know please whether it matters what ticket you already have, in other words can you buy the upgrade if you have a standard class advance ticket?

 

[hexagon789]

Does anyone know please whether it matters what ticket you already have, in other words can you buy the upgrade if you have a standard class advance ticket?

From the horse's mouth as it were, TfW themselves:

Fancy an upgrade?​

Where applicable, you can upgrade from a Standard Class ticket to First Class on our services. This applies to all our Standard tickets including Anytime and Advance Singles, Returns, Season tickets, and Rover and Ranger tickets.

All you need to do is let the conductor on board know that you’d like to upgrade, and they’ll confirm whether there’s space available in First Class.

 

[Grizzly]

Excellent, thank you, that is very clear

 

[J663738]

I was on a new class 197 TfW train where they had a 'Standard Plus' section, doing a search seems to suggest TfW has abandoned plans for Standard Plus, but the seat will remain. Confused, as all the signs in the carriage were still showing it and inviting you to upgrade.

But I can't find anything on the TfW website about Standard Plus.

 

[hexagon789]

I was on a new class 197 TfW train where they had a 'Standard Plus' section, doing a search seems to suggest TfW has abandoned plans for Standard Plus, but the seat will remain. Confused, as all the signs in the carriage were still showing it and inviting you to upgrade.

But I can't find anything on the TfW website about Standard Plus.

It's permanently declassified.

The signage is meant to be getting removed, but presumably not deemed a priority.

 

[J663738]

It's permanently declassified.

The signage is meant to be getting removed, but presumably not deemed a priority.

Thanks for info, that explains why several TfW off duty staff were using it, as most other customers probably thought is was still in use.
I also wondered why the two chaps on the refreshment trolley, plus the conductor were all having a great chin-wag in there. I though maybe an arguments about up grades etc, but it was in fact a TfW staff rest room!

 

[185]

I was on a new class 197 TfW train where they had a 'Standard Plus' section, doing a search seems to suggest TfW has abandoned plans for Standard Plus, but the seat will remain.

Observed on Friday yet another Standard Plus, half empty but about fifty passengers stood up in vestibules in a single set. Whilst they are new, the operator should be ensuring as many seats as possible are available, starting by ripping out those silly fridges & cupboards, then re-seating the former standard plus areas. Noticed a similar situation some months ago, with their Chief Operating Officer sat in the the middle of the empty SP section, with full and standing passengers throughout the rest of the train. It really needs removing and refitting - it's not like their senior management don't know.

 

[StarCrossing]

The signage is meant to be getting removed, but presumably not deemed a priority.

On the one hand it's bizarre, as how long does it take to remove some stickers or even just put some tape over them?

On the other hand, it might not make much difference, as there are other classes of train operating in South Wales, such as GWR's 166s and CrossCountry's 170s, where all the stickers and signs have been removed yet most passengers will still avoid the former 1st class section.

 

[yorkie]

Thanks so much. I see Seatfrog charge £3 on top of the cost which isn’t great. I’m not sure £15 (Seatfrog minimum) is worth it for coffee and biscuits….

They aren't allowed to 'drip price'; take screenshots as evidence, and once you have a decent value of them, claim for a refund.

 

[alistairlees]

From the horse's mouth as it were, TfW themselves:

Fancy an upgrade?​

Where applicable, you can upgrade from a Standard Class ticket to First Class on our services. This applies to all our Standard tickets including Anytime and Advance Singles, Returns, Season tickets, and Rover and Ranger tickets.

All you need to do is let the conductor on board know that you’d like to upgrade, and they’ll confirm whether there’s space available in First Class.

I do wish TOCs would stop making ambiguous / misleading statements like "our ... tickets". The right to upgrade does not exist only with "our" (i.e. TfW's tickets, in this context), but with any valid ticket, no matter who issued it, what fare route it bears, or who the fare setter is.

Removing the word "our" would, in fact, make the sentence considerably clearer.

 

[Topological]

On the one hand it's bizarre, as how long does it take to remove some stickers or even just put some tape over them?

On the other hand, it might not make much difference, as there are other classes of train operating in South Wales, such as GWR's 166s and CrossCountry's 170s, where all the stickers and signs have been removed yet most passengers will still avoid the former 1st class section.

It is shocking that the stickers are still there.

I had the "benefit" of Standard Plus yesterday because I know it is declassified. I also told some others who were looking at the seats thinking they should go and crowd into the rest of the train. It was on a Mk4 replacement diagram rather than a normal 197 diagram, but that makes no difference.

Whilst First is nice (it is because the Mk4 was a premier Intercity train for most of its life), I am never convinced that it has a place on the Marches. The fact they offer these upgrades to fill it (and it is never full when I see it), suggests that perhaps there is not the demand for full-price first-class tickets that some would like to imagine.

More standard class seats should be the way forward on all but the longest of trains.

In the meantime, at least I know that when a Mk4 fails there is a reasonable chance a Standard Plus unit turns up and I can use my knowledge to secure a seat.

 

[J663738]

On the one hand it's bizarre, as how long does it take to remove some stickers or even just put some tape over them?

They have the Welsh Language on the them, so TfW will be very reluctant to remove them, even if they are wrong!

 

[John R]

Observed on Friday yet another Standard Plus, half empty but about fifty passengers stood up in vestibules in a single set. Whilst they are new, the operator should be ensuring as many seats as possible are available, starting by ripping out those silly fridges & cupboards, then re-seating the former standard plus areas. Noticed a similar situation some months ago, with their Chief Operating Officer sat in the the middle of the empty SP section, with full and standing passengers throughout the rest of the train. It really needs removing and refitting - it's not like their senior management don't know.

That is appalling leadership.

 

[signed]

The fact they offer these upgrades to fill it

Note that all* (there are probably exceptions) operators with First Class offer some kind of Weekend First upgrades.

LNER also offers on-train weekday upgrades, despite the product being very well used and that's not accounting with the various Seatfrog participating operators

 

[J663738]

Just out of interest, how long ago was SP declassified? The train I was on last week looked virtually brand new, the seats had that new car smell.
It was a 197 that replaced a faulty loco pulled 5 carriage trains.

 

[Topological]

Just out of interest, how long ago was SP declassified? The train I was on last week looks virtually brand new, the seats had that new car smell.

Almost immediately.

All trains entered service with it declassified. There was a date when upgrades were supposed to start then that got delayed and then abandoned.

Shambles.

For reference on TfW see: 2024 thread on Standard Plus

This is a quote from @Krokodil on that thread:

Several of the relevant sets haven't been accepted into traffic yet, and the 197 fleet is being stretched to cover for ongoing absences in the other fleets (not to mention unreliability among the 197s themselves). Once the 398s and 756s are all in traffic and the 231s can resume their intended workings, diagramming will stabilise. Until then Control are just having to juggle the resources they've got.

At that point Standard Plus was "delayed" not abandoned, so the post is used here to clarify that trains did enter into service with SP "delayed" where the thread explains that the delay became permanent months later.

But it is clear that no seat has ever been Standard Plus from a fare perspective (Note that there is a tale in the thread of a user who was charged an upgrade...)


== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Aug 2025 ==

Note that all* (there are probably exceptions) operators with First Class offer Weekend First upgrades.

LNER also offers on-train upgrades, despite the product being very well used and that's not accounting with the various Seatfrog participating operators

I suspect that there are few who have overprovided. Though, I thought LNER might have been closer to demand. Avanti got rid of first class carriages because they had too many.

Avanti introduced Standard Premium segregated from First Class, which is a bit easier to do on a Pendolino.

My outside take is that first-class demand is well down at that we may even be getting to the point that you get more revenue from the higher number of standard class seats that you fit into the space occupied by a lower number of first. It is more than just 1 extra standard class across the width of the carriage.

 

[John R]

As built Mk 3s had 48 First and 72 2nd class seats, and at the time IIRC the premium for First was a consistent 50% of the fare. So there was a logic to the additional cost. Catered food had to be paid for, so the only freebie on board was (I think) tea/coffee, soft drinks etc.

Oh for those simple days…

 

[WAB]

Observed on Friday yet another Standard Plus, half empty but about fifty passengers stood up in vestibules in a single set. Whilst they are new, the operator should be ensuring as many seats as possible are available, starting by ripping out those silly fridges & cupboards, then re-seating the former standard plus areas. Noticed a similar situation some months ago, with their Chief Operating Officer sat in the the middle of the empty SP section, with full and standing passengers throughout the rest of the train. It really needs removing and refitting - it's not like their senior management don't know.

I've been on them where the guard has walked through the train advising standing passengers that anyone could sit in standard plus and that there were plenty of seats available. No-one moved. There's no helping some people

 

[Topological]

One thing I did notice, none of the stations I checked last night were displaying the (1) in the Standard Premium carriage (I did not notice Piccadilly, but did check Wilmslow, Crewe, Hereford, Abergavenny and Pontypool).

Maybe because it was covering a Mk4, or maybe the issue of displaying first class has ginally been resolved.

 

[gray1404]

I am sick of the standard plus signage still being there. I avoid it when possible. I am always on edge sat in there in case a Conductor or Transport Investigations Limited person on board checking tickets wrongly attempts to charge me. It appears the TfW Standard Plus supplements have disappeared from BR Fares at least.

 

[Topological]

How hard would it be to add stickers saying "Standard Class" or "All Passengers are Free to Sit Here"?

I know that those of us who know there is no charge benefit. However, I would much prefer non-safety critical information, like the fact these seats do not carry any premium, to be communicated clearly.

 

[WirralLine]

I am sick of the standard plus signage still being there. I avoid it when possible. I am always on edge sat in there in case a Conductor or Transport Investigations Limited person on board checking tickets wrongly attempts to charge me. It appears the TfW Standard Plus supplements have disappeared from BR Fares at least.

Definitely wont happen, its been made clear internally its standard class and wont have any issues.