GWR: no longer possible to book (online) seat or bike reservation except when buying a ticket

[gallafent]

From The Oxford Clarion this week:

GWR have removed the ability to make seat and bike reservations from their website independently of buying a ticket, after it was discovered that the QR codes it generated could be used as free “golden tickets” – successfully passing through ticket barriers and on-train scanners. The glitch arose after GWR replaced their existing app and purchasing platform. The train company now asks passengers who already have tickets to call them on the phone, or visit a ticket office, if they want to make a seat or bike reservation. Reservations can still be made at the time of purchase.

Quite annoying, especially the bike part. No mention made of whether/when they plan to bring it back.

Related is the general difficulty of "giving back" a reservation when one wants to switch train ... leading to the vast numbers of unoccupied (by the reserver) reserved seats, the consequent sea of red, the fact that it's often the case that the person with the reservation will not be on the train and so sitting in a reserved seat is often fine (nobody comes to ask you to move out of their seat), and the consequent reluctance of some people to move when they are asked! Hey ho.

(The system change also marks the demise at GWR of my favoured "mixing deck" GUI which had been "hidden" but still there and functional for years -- do any operators still have that now?)

 

[voyagerdude220]

SWR appears to still offer the "Mixing Beck" format:

South Western Railway

tickets.southwesternrailway.com

I agree with you, I think it's the best train ticket website format. (And that's coming from Ticket Office staff who doesn't want to be made redundant by websites.._

 

[DelW]

From The Oxford Clarion this week:

Quite annoying, especially the bike part. No mention made of whether/when they plan to bring it back.

Related is the general difficulty of "giving back" a reservation when one wants to switch train ... leading to the vast numbers of unoccupied (by the reserver) reserved seats, the consequent sea of red, the fact that it's often the case that the person with the reservation will not be on the train and so sitting in a reserved seat is often fine (nobody comes to ask you to move out of their seat), and the consequent reluctance of some people to move when they are asked! Hey ho.

(The system change also marks the demise at GWR of my favoured "mixing deck" GUI which had been "hidden" but still there and functional for years -- do any operators still have that now?)

In case you missed them, some of the reasons were discussed in these threads:

GWR changing app/website provider on 24th February

Just a heads up that GWR have announced that they are changing app/website provider on 24th Feb. Sensibly, unlike XC, Advances from before that once deployed are changed via refund-and-rebook, which is how e.g. Trainsplit does it anyway. However I doubt the new system will do the standalone...

www.railforums.co.uk

GWR seat reservation tool generating valid travel tickets in error

Don't think anyone will be booking standalone seat reservations through GWR's new booking portal any time soon: A “golden ticket generator” that gave free train travel across the entire country has been shut down following a botched software upgrade. The blunder saw digital seat reservations...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[Kite159]

SWR appears to still offer the "Mixing Beck" format:

South Western Railway

tickets.southwesternrailway.com

I agree with you, I think it's the best train ticket website format. (And that's coming from Ticket Office staff who doesn't want to be made redundant by websites.._

Although potentially not for much longer

 

[gallafent]

In case you missed them, some of the reasons were discussed in these threads:

GWR changing app/website provider on 24th February

Just a heads up that GWR have announced that they are changing app/website provider on 24th Feb. Sensibly, unlike XC, Advances from before that once deployed are changed via refund-and-rebook, which is how e.g. Trainsplit does it anyway. However I doubt the new system will do the standalone...

www.railforums.co.uk

GWR seat reservation tool generating valid travel tickets in error

Don't think anyone will be booking standalone seat reservations through GWR's new booking portal any time soon: A “golden ticket generator” that gave free train travel across the entire country has been shut down following a botched software upgrade. The blunder saw digital seat reservations...

www.railforums.co.uk

Thanks for the background info @DelW, it's been a busy week and I'd missed those!

 

[Essexman]

It doesn't seem to be possible to specify a window seat any more.

 

[YorkC]

This is really annoying. Does anyone know if there's any way to still do this anywhere else? I know LNER offer it for their own trains but that's it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

This is really annoying. Does anyone know if there's any way to still do this anywhere else? I know LNER offer it for their own trains but that's it.

Supposedly TPE still do it.

 

[YorkC]

Supposedly TPE still do it.

Thanks, just found that.

 

[Joe Paxton]

SWR appears to still offer the "Mixing Deck" format:

South Western Railway

tickets.southwesternrailway.com

Although potentially not for much longer

Indeed no longer as of today, Thursday 26 March - see this other thread:
SWR updating booking engine and app on 26 March 2026

SWR now uses the SilverRail booking engine, as seen on GWR.

RedSpottedHanky is the last holdout of the Mixing Deck, but I'd imagine likely not for much longer.

 

[Steddenm]

Thanks, just found that.

Do you have a link to the page?

 

[kkong]

Do you have a link to the page?

The link is: Make a seat / bike reservation

You need to be logged into your TPE account.

 

[TheWierdOne]

RedSpottedHanky is the last holdout of the Mixing Deck, but I'd imagine likely not for much longer.

The rail staff priv booking portal also still uses the Mixing Deck, but it isn’t a publicly accessible site for obvious reasons

 

[Daniel_P]

Indeed no longer as of today, Thursday 26 March - see this other thread:
SWR updating booking engine and app on 26 March 2026

SWR now uses the SilverRail booking engine, as seen on GWR.

RedSpottedHanky is the last holdout of the Mixing Deck, but I'd imagine likely not for much longer.

Just to add to this - Realtime Tickets' detailed mode: https://www.realtimetickets.co.uk/ - offers mixing deck as well. For the last few weeks I've been booking via RTT and it works really well.

 

[Joe Paxton]

Just to add to this - Realtime Tickets' detailed mode: https://www.realtimetickets.co.uk/ - offers mixing deck as well. For the last few weeks I've been booking via RTT and it works really well.

It's very similar and must surely have been inspired by the Worldline 'Mixing Deck', but it's worth noting it is a different product.

I do like it (and bravo to its creators), but it's not quite the same - it takes up significantly more screen real estate than the Mixing Deck, nor can you scroll up and down the journey list to display more services/journeys (ultimately being able to show all journeys that day) whilst keeping the original journeys present in the list. Also you can't declutter the fares by turning off split-tickets.

 

[Kite159]

The rail staff priv booking portal also still uses the Mixing Deck, but it isn’t a publicly accessible site for obvious reasons

I wonder how long until that gets switched over to a new provider seeing as Webtis are exiting the market (so I've read somewhere).

As for Red Spotted Hanky, isn't that just Webtis themselves, so no doubt that will probably close at some point.

 

[Flying Snail]

Just to add to this - Realtime Tickets' detailed mode: https://www.realtimetickets.co.uk/ - offers mixing deck as well. For the last few weeks I've been booking via RTT and it works really well.

None of the 3rd party ticket sellers have ever shown any interest in offering seat or bike reservations, I suppose no profit in it.

 

[akm]

None of the 3rd party ticket sellers have ever shown any interest in offering seat or bike reservations, I suppose no profit in it.

When I wondered about this a while back the answer was exactly that.

Arbitrary seat reservations without going to a ticket office?

It's a common refrain in this forum that a reservation for any specific journey leg can be obtained (or should in theory be obtainable) at any ticket office. But what (if any) are the non-ticket office options for this same task? Any websites / apps? If it's not possible, why not?

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[Oxfordblues]

Cycle reservations on GWR are of limited utility in my experience. Taking my bike from Reading to the West Country one summer Friday afternoon I made sure to book a cycle space well in advance. But when the 5-car IET arrived at Reading I found the cycle spaces were stacked to the roof with suitcases and I was unable to board. There was no time in the 2-minute station-stop to rearrange the luggage.

 

[Tom]

None of the 3rd party ticket sellers have ever shown any interest in offering seat or bike reservations, I suppose no profit in it.

Cycle reservations are on our request list with our supplier, on our part. But we can do them via support just not self serve.

 

[Flying Snail]

Cycle reservations are on our request list with our supplier, on our part. But we can do them via support just not self serve.

As I don't know who you are...

No interest in cycles personally on the other hand, seat reservations (especially with proper seat selection) would be invaluable for me and many other overseas visitors on Interrail passes who are currently very badly served by the UK booking system.

 

[Adam Williams]

None of the 3rd party ticket sellers have ever shown any interest in offering seat or bike reservations, I suppose no profit in it.

The fact that they're offered to customers for free isn't really a factor - plenty of features are offered for free to build customer loyalty, provide ticket-adjacent services etc. They're a pain to implement for other reasons (to my knowledge there basically is no proper machine-readable cycle policy data for TIS suppliers to use), and so much time gets wasted trying to meet ever-changing regulatory requirements instead of doing useful things.

Actually making the reservations is easy, which is why for the forum ticketing site and other Raileasy-powered retailers will do it on request in the customer services team but it's clearly not as good as experience as being able to do it during the booking flow and being able to accurately tell the customer whether they're compulsory, bikes aren't permitted or whether there aren't reservations required at all etc.

 

[Bletchleyite]

For what it's worth Trainline does now have a feature to "rebook" for free on a walk up fare and thus switch your reservation to a new train including cancelling the old one. This is long overdue as a thing, I don't think any other retailer does it, though I haven't played with it to see how well it works because if buying tickets for reservable trains I tend to use Trainsplit (or a version of it) so I can use the seat selector.

This is for many use cases better than standalone reservations because it avoids abuse, e.g. reserving multiple seats to block a table where you only need one (yes, someone can sit there, but on something like LNER it's fairly likely they won't as most passengers reserve), or reserving seats on multiple trains because you don't know which one you will catch. Not useful for the likes of season ticket and Rover holders though.

I suppose the "friction" of having to contact customer services dissuades misuse. See also the whole refunds thing.

 

[scragend]

I've always used TPE rather than GWR to book seat/bike reservations online (I think I've used GWR once).

I've just booked a seat reservation via TPE for travel on Avanti in June. I noticed that it now gives me a collection reference and tells me to collect the reservation from a station. Well, the on screen confirmation says "To collect your reservations, use the reservation code provided at a ticket machine at the station"; there is no such message in the e-mail which I received shortly afterwards. The e-mail does have a "collection reference" though - in the past this was given as "reservation reference".

I did notice that the on screen confirmation now explicitly states "This is a reservation only. A valid train ticket is required to travel".

Obviously if it was an actual ticket that I was booking, I would need to collect it before travel. But for just a seat reservation, do I actually have to? I can do, and I will, but just curious. The e-mail confirmation has the details of the service and the seat number on it, and it's only a seat reservation not a ticket for travel.

(Will be travelling on InterRail outbound day so that is my ticket)

EDIT: There is also now an option within the TPE account page to cancel the reservation. I don't think that was there before. I could be wrong.

 

[VT 390]

Obviously if it was an actual ticket that I was booking, I would need to collect it before travel. But for just a seat reservation, do I actually have to? I can do, and I will, but just curious. The e-mail confirmation has the details of the service and the seat number on it, and it's only a seat reservation not a ticket for travel.

I usually collect the TransPennine website seat reservations but a few weeks ago when I made a relatively late notice reservation I did not have chance to collect it but the reservation was correctly displayed on board (this was on Cross Country).

 

[Floydlover25]

EDIT: There is also now an option within the TPE account page to cancel the reservation. I don't think that was there before. I could be wrong.

I believe that has always been the case as have used it myself previously

 

[Pete_uk]

To ask a silly question, why would you want to reserve a seat and/or bicycle space without buying a ticket?

 

[VT 390]

To ask a silly question, why would you want to reserve a seat and/or bicycle space without buying a ticket?

There are many reasons including, having a season ticket, planning a rover/ranger trip, already having a flexible ticket where plans change, your advance ticket service has been cancelled...

 

[Flying Snail]

To ask a silly question, why would you want to reserve a seat and/or bicycle space without buying a ticket?

There are a wide range of ticket types people may hold that do not come with seat reservations, either optionally or never, as well as any open ticket that may come with a reservation but is also valid on other trains. For example; season tickets, rovers, rangers, interrail, sail-rail.

 

[Bletchleyite]

To ask a silly question, why would you want to reserve a seat and/or bicycle space without buying a ticket?

With the new refund rules starting in two days' time, so you don't risk wasting an expensive Anytime fare if you end up deciding on the day not to travel, but you do want to ensure that if you do travel you can have a reserved seat and take your bicycle.