Avanti - how to change seat reservation (using an Off Peak return)

[DaveB10780]

I am trying to change a seat reservation to an earlier train for the outbound part of an Off peak return - not changing the date. The ticket is an E-Ticket and bought online. Simple you might think, but it seems not. Web site says click a link to send amend request which bizarrely results in a generic Refund form. Surely it should be a targeted form for this request. I have filled in the generic form but I then get a message saying responses may take 4 weeks which is unhelpful to put it mildly. Is there a better way to request this simple amendment?

What I find slightly annoying is the Advance tickets have special treatment at the moment and can be amended on line without problem or penalty.

 

[yorkie]

Can you ask at a ticket office?

Alternatively they may do this on Twitter

 

[DaveB10780]

Thanks, I am probably passing Piccadilly today and I will see what they say, if that fails I will try Twitter later. I just am amazed they can't even design a web site with decent forms in this day and age or possibly have a online chat process. This is what the web site says which strongly suggests you can only do amendments online and also "Up to the departure time of your train". Not quite sure exactly how this would be true with a poorly designed form that is for another purpose.

Bought your ticket on our website or app?
Up to the departure time of your train, you can amend the date and time of your ticket without an admin fee.

To do this, please fill out this form and we will be in contact as soon as possible.

Bought at one of our stations?​

Head back to the station you bought it from, where the Ticket Office team can amend your ticket. Here's a list of all the stations we manage the Ticket Offices at. You must have returned to the station before your original departure time in order to amend the ticket.

 

[realemil]

To change your seat reservation, you need to (as yorkie stated), go to a ticket office or use their Social Media Team.

There is no form, or live chat - or anything like that, simply because it would take too much time to do such a simple request via such an extensive form. (And because nobody wants to man a live chat).

 

[AM9]

To change your seat reservation, you need to (as yorkie stated), go to a ticket office or use their Social Media Team.

There is no form, or live chat - or anything like that, simply because it would take too much time to do such a simple request via such an extensive form. (And because nobody wants to man a live chat).

My experience three weeks ago was dire. I went through the motions for TOD to Chester from St Albans via Euston. The off-peak price was OK for me so decided that at least I would get to select seats if I booked direct with Avanti. Everything went OK up to looking at the seats that it had given me from my preferences; forward facing near to luggage racks. The latter was a preference but the latter not negotiable.
So when I checked the seat maps, I had been given two backward facing seats. I clicked on one of the reserved seats to pick it up and drop it on a suitable vacant one of a pair of forwards facing seats. When I dropped it on the seat a message came up saying that the change 'couldn't be made on the webpage', fair enough but then the next line was telling me that the original seat reserved was now "no longer available". So now I only had one seat reserved now. I tried it again, and I lost that seat as well. Luckily I hadn't actually committe to buying the ticket so I backed out and retried. On two consecutive retries, the same happened so I gave up on Avanti. As others have found, there is no online help and nobody to speak to. I then decided to just book through Thameslink and pick up from the window on the day of travel. At least I could reason with the person giving me the tickets although TL didn't offer the ability to change seats anyway.
Flash forward to Monday 20th, whilst out and about from Chester I decided to drop in on the Avanti office in Piccadilly. The reservations on the return journey gave me two seats, one forward facing the other rearward in a different coach! (We were travelling on a Two Together railcard)! The person there was trying to help, but her system just refused to do anything with reservations. So I gave up and had to use what knowldge I had to avoid standing from Crewe to Euston.
So what is the point of a) asking for preferences and b) offering the opportunity to make selective changes from what is offered? The airlines mange it all the time, why does Avanti not have a clue?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Try booking through Trainsplit (or Trainscanbecheaper if you don't want splits to be offered), the seat selector there I find works reliably.

Sounds like Avanti are releasing the old seat before claiming the new one - that's silly!

 

[gordonthemoron]

Try booking through Trainsplit (or Trainscanbecheaper if you don't want splits to be offered), the seat selector there I find works reliably.

Sounds like Avanti are releasing the old seat before claiming the new one - that's silly!

How often have the seat reservations not been loaded onto Avanti trains in the first place?

 

[Bletchleyite]

How often have the seat reservations not been loaded onto Avanti trains in the first place?

Pendolinos: extremely reliable
Voyagers: extremely unreliable

...in my experience.

 

[realemil]

My experience three weeks ago was dire. I went through the motions for TOD to Chester from St Albans via Euston. The off-peak price was OK for me so decided that at least I would get to select seats if I booked direct with Avanti. Everything went OK up to looking at the seats that it had given me from my preferences; forward facing near to luggage racks. The latter was a preference but the latter not negotiable.
So when I checked the seat maps, I had been given two backward facing seats. I clicked on one of the reserved seats to pick it up and drop it on a suitable vacant one of a pair of forwards facing seats. When I dropped it on the seat a message came up saying that the change 'couldn't be made on the webpage', fair enough but then the next line was telling me that the original seat reserved was now "no longer available". So now I only had one seat reserved now. I tried it again, and I lost that seat as well. Luckily I hadn't actually committe to buying the ticket so I backed out and retried. On two consecutive retries, the same happened so I gave up on Avanti. As others have found, there is no online help and nobody to speak to. I then decided to just book through Thameslink and pick up from the window on the day of travel. At least I could reason with the person giving me the tickets although TL didn't offer the ability to change seats anyway.
Flash forward to Monday 20th, whilst out and about from Chester I decided to drop in on the Avanti office in Piccadilly. The reservations on the return journey gave me two seats, one forward facing the other rearward in a different coach! (We were travelling on a Two Together railcard)! The person there was trying to help, but her system just refused to do anything with reservations. So I gave up and had to use what knowldge I had to avoid standing from Crewe to Euston.
So what is the point of a) asking for preferences and b) offering the opportunity to make selective changes from what is offered? The airlines mange it all the time, why does Avanti not have a clue?

Jesus Christ, that's an absolute joke - the fare system for the UK is extremely broken.

The largest issue is within the fact that people NEED to book a TIMED SERVICE when booking anytime tickets !!! So when you book for an anytime ticket, you're also booking a seat on a service, which you may not travel on, at all?! It's absolute nonsense.

I feel extremely sorry for you that you've had to go through that, and if I was in your position - I would've sat next to the person I was travelling with and left it at that, screw a seat reservation system that doesn't even work.

Sounds like Avanti are releasing the old seat before claiming the new one - that's silly!

If I'm not mistaken, the ticketing system is First Trenitalia system, which is not exactly reliable? Haven't fares been offered which are extremely expensive for journeys where cheaper fares are available too?

 

[DaveB10780]

Reporting back with a success at Manchester Piccadilly, glad to know you can easily do this at a ticket office. Thanks for the advice. My main gripe remains that the web site contains incorrect and misleading information together with a link to an incorrect page.

 

[crosscity]

Is the train you want to catch likely to be so full that you will need to stand if you haven't got a reserved seat? You have a walk-on ticket and so don't need a reservation provided its a valid train for the ticket you've got. On the day it is likely there will be unreserved seats and no-shows in many of the reserved ones.

 

[DaveB10780]

Is the train you want to catch likely to be so full that you will need to stand if you haven't got a reserved seat? You have a walk-on ticket and so don't need a reservation provided its a valid train for the ticket you've got. On the day it is likely there will be unreserved seats and no-shows in many of the reserved ones.

I agree with however the traveller in this case is my daughter who needs certainty (or it least as much as she can get) when undertaking these journeys due to suffering very much from anxiety.

 

[crosscity]

I agree with however the traveller in this case is my daughter who needs certainty (or it least as much as she can get) when undertaking these journeys due to suffering very much from anxiety.

Well, that's fair enough. The reason I made the comment was that you may not have been aware that just because you had a reservation you weren't required to have another one if you decided to travel on a different train. I'm pleased it's now been sorted out for you.

 

[roversfan2001]

Jesus Christ, that's an absolute joke - the fare system for the UK is extremely broken.

The largest issue is within the fact that people NEED to book a TIMED SERVICE when booking anytime tickets !!! So when you book for an anytime ticket, you're also booking a seat on a service, which you may not travel on, at all?! It's absolute nonsense.

This is because Avanti services are marked as 'reservations compulsory' in the industry data, when they aren't, and even when other operators (looking at you, LNER) were quite strict about this, Avanti didn't really seem to care. I'm not sure why they're still marked as such in the data when it causes problems like this.