This is something to be aware of when travelling with Avanti.
Based on my experience today, when you book directly with Avanti and reserve two adjacent seats, do not assume that means you will be seated together. Also do not expect to receive any advance communication from them that anything has changed.
I reserved seats A4 and A5 on an Evero, only to find an 11-car Pendolino assigned where our seats are now the furthest diagonally opposite seats across the aisle in a group of eight.
I am surprised the algorithms don't attempt to map adjacent seats to adjacent seats when there is an equipment-type change (nor why they didn't try to align Evero and Pendolino seat numbering more closely so that seat pairs use the same pairs of numbers).
Quite what happens to people whose Evero seat numbers don't even exist, I don't know.
This was not a last-minute trainset swap. It was showing as a Pendolino yesterday, but it was only after boarding that I twigged that there had been a change since booking in April.
It will be a minor irritation for most people, but it could be more important if one passenger is travelling with someone who is significantly dependent on them or a child.
Based on my experience today, when you book directly with Avanti and reserve two adjacent seats, do not assume that means you will be seated together. Also do not expect to receive any advance communication from them that anything has changed.
I reserved seats A4 and A5 on an Evero, only to find an 11-car Pendolino assigned where our seats are now the furthest diagonally opposite seats across the aisle in a group of eight.
I am surprised the algorithms don't attempt to map adjacent seats to adjacent seats when there is an equipment-type change (nor why they didn't try to align Evero and Pendolino seat numbering more closely so that seat pairs use the same pairs of numbers).
Quite what happens to people whose Evero seat numbers don't even exist, I don't know.
This was not a last-minute trainset swap. It was showing as a Pendolino yesterday, but it was only after boarding that I twigged that there had been a change since booking in April.
It will be a minor irritation for most people, but it could be more important if one passenger is travelling with someone who is significantly dependent on them or a child.
