Presume you're not attempting to travel into (or maybe out of) London Euston using Avanti, before 1000 (Mondays to Fridays)?
You can as long as you abide by the time restrictions on the ticket. A reservation is not actually necessary.
No, I've been checking the northbound trains around 1830. Strange that RTT shows the symbol.
All Avanti trains at all times are “reservations compulsory”. Similarly LNER. Both of them have unreserved and unreserveable seats on all their trains. It’s been much discussed and moaned about in the forum. Most people don’t notice.
Wow! I'd never heard of Tiger before; isn't it, well, wonderful!
Can't use an All Line Rover on Avanti, into or out of London Euston, Mon-Fri (BHX), for arrivals/departures before 1000.
I've been using a 1st class ALR for the last two weeks up and down the WCML. Plenty of unreserved (or 'reserved' but unoccupied) seats in 1st on peak and off peak Pendolino services on weekdays (including to/from Euston); less so on weekends and Bank Holiday Monday due to coach K only being available.
Wow! I'd never heard of Tiger before; isn't it, well, wonderful!
BTW, I normally get a lift on the Disability Buggies if I arrive early enough, which gets me on well in advance of anyone else. There are advantages to being old and knackered sometimes.
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Thanks for the help. I shall ignore the symbols on RTT.
Not just Euston
Rugby or beyond. But also remembering restrictions at Birmingham New Street.
For future information, you can get those on the TPE website after creating an account
GWR used to let you book those reservations but system change (and some free ticket vulnerabilities with this facility as well) closed that for them a few months ago. You can also pop in at any ticket office for them to do it.
There are no compulsory reservations; even Avanti won’t advertise them as such if you check through their channels. What’s concerning is the creeping tendency for this workaround hack to be talked about online as if it were actual policy.
So how does it creep into the pdf timetables on the NR website? I remember a similar "hack" appearing on the GWR Gatwick - Reading service, when all trains were suddenly marked as compulsory reservation a few years ago. A quick chat with guards and booking office staff revealed this to be nonsense (and unenforceable anyway on a "paytrain" type line) but it did cause a lot of hassle for staff and passengers.
It hasn’t crept in, it’s been that way since 2020/Covid. It just never got rescinded subsequently, because Avanti and others would love to force all their passengers to make mandatory reservations in advance of travelling.
I agree that's very poor for the Train Managers (both before and after the change of crew at Preston) to not mention about this over the PA.
Because it's in the data. But yeah it's exactly the same nonsense as Gatwick - Reading, Coaches C and U are unreserved and I never bother with reservations on Avanti personally. The only risk is that if people start taking it seriously, a decade from now new management might forget that it was only ever a workaround, and suddenly it will have "always been a real thing."
