Double Booked Seats

[SteveP29]

Currently on a train from Birmingham to York.
Due to a cancelled train, a trainload have joined us at Sheffield.
We are on a split ticket.
Upon having to move seats at Sheffield, I've found that one of our tickets has been double booked for the same seat with somebody else.
Consequently, with this and the extra passengers from the cancelled train, I'm standing all the way to York with no chance of getting a seat.
I booked through Trainsplit, is it worth contacting them to ask the question how it was possible the seat could be double booked?
Thanks in advance.

 

[Adam Williams]

I've investigated quite a number of these reports, and in most of the cases one of the two passengers was mistaken. In a handful of cases, the train operator had messed about with the reservations after booking and had failed to manage the booking conflicts properly afterwards (this normally happens if there's a set swap, and passengers need re-accommodating).

I booked through Trainsplit, is it worth contacting them to ask the question how it was possible the seat could be double booked?

It's definitely worth contacting customer support, giving them the booking ref and asking the question - if nothing else, the support folks can a) just double check all the details for you, and confirm nothing went wrong technically and the booking looks fine when it's retrieved and b) issue you with a reservation confirmation document that you can take to the TOC to ask the question as to what went wrong.

 

[SteveP29]

I've investigated quite a number of these reports, and in most of the cases one of the two passengers was mistaken. In a handful of cases, the train operator had messed about with the reservations after booking and had failed to manage the booking conflicts properly afterwards (this normally happens if there's a set swap, and passengers need re-accommodating).



It's definitely worth contacting customer support, giving them the booking ref and asking the question - if nothing else, the support folks can a) just double check all the details for you, and confirm nothing went wrong technically and the booking looks fine when it's retrieved and b) issue you with a reservation confirmation document that you can take to the TOC to ask the question as to what went wrong.

Thank you.
I asked the passenger with the double booked seat for her details, so I have her email address and they can contact her for her booking etc if they need to check it out.
I will be in contact with them when I can get to a computer, easier for me to do it there than on a phone

 

[74A]

Have you actually seen the other ticket with the identical booking details.

 

[Adam Williams]

Have you actually seen the other ticket with the identical booking details.

This is usually the crucial part.

I was travelling back from York on Crosscountry this week and we had exactly this happen - two pax claiming to be in the same seat in coach A. They even called over the train manager to look at customer A's printed ticket and customer B's Trainline app, who had no idea what to advise.

After a bit of debate it turned out that the people using Trainline's app were looking at completely the wrong journey and somehow hadn't noticed.

 

[peteb]

This is usually the crucial part.

I was travelling back from York on Crosscountry this week and we had exactly this happen - two pax claiming to be in the same seat in coach A. They even called over the train manager to look at customer A's printed ticket and customer B's Trainline app, who had no idea what to advise.

After a bit of debate it turned out that the people using Trainline's app were looking at completely the wrong journey and somehow hadn't noticed.

Yes, this happened to me at Paddington once, the folks sitting in "our" seats had the right train, right carriage, right seats, wrong day! Turned out they'd bought in advance but the website dated the ticket the day of purchase, not the intended date of travel.

 

[SteveP29]

Have you actually seen the other ticket with the identical booking details.

Yes, I did

 

[Haywain]

I was travelling back from York on Crosscountry this week and we had exactly this happen - two pax claiming to be in the same seat in coach A. They even called over the train manager to look at customer A's printed ticket and customer B's Trainline app, who had no idea what to advise.

I have seen cases where both had the same seat on the same train, but one was travelling on the wrong day.

 

[Trainman40083]

I wonder how often, passengers with reserved seats on cancelled train think their reserved seats apply to the later train?

 

[Haywain]

I wonder how often, passengers with reserved seats on cancelled train think their reserved seats apply to the later train?

Quite a lot.

 

[Jimini]

Quite a lot.

Yep. Had that today on an XC service.

 

[Falcon1200]

I have seen cases where both had the same seat on the same train, but one was travelling on the wrong day.

Even worse was when, many years ago, a Sleeper train (to Leeds?) left Kings X after midnight; Passengers booked berths for Friday, thinking they were travelling on Friday night into Saturday, when their booking was actually for 0045 on Friday.

 

[reb0118]

Even worse was when, many years ago, a Sleeper train (to Leeds?) left Kings X after midnight.......

I used to work on the Caledonian Sleeper on occasion and similar situations were quite common at the those stations where the train stopped after midnight e.g. Inverkeithing & Falkirk Grahamston. A no show one morning often resulted in an extra passenger the next.

 

[Trainman40083]

Quite a lot.

And if those whose train is cancelled can travel on the one before or after, it could all get very cosy

 

[railpigeon]

I was impressed by Trainsplit’s speedy response to a tech issue back in the summer.

I tried to book a CIV ticket on Trainsplit, seat61 having suggested it. It wasn’t available; I emailed them; they apologised for the glitch (arising from a code update elsewhere); and within the day the fare was back up.

So no harm in flagging what could be a seat booking issue.

 

[Thames99]

Right at the start of Covid I was coming back from Brussels on Eurostar. I was booked on an evening train, but as the city was closing down around me I went to the station in the morning and they happily issued a replacement ticket for the next train. There must have been fewer than 50 passengers in all. I dutifully went to my carriage to find that the only other passenger in there had been given a ticket for the same seat.

 

[londonbridge]

I once had an instance on LNER where the two people who claimed we were in their seats were travelling in the wrong direction, ie I was on a southbound train and they were meant to be travelling north.

 

[edgar13]

I once had to book 10+ identical sets of tickets for my group, and the automatically generated reservations gave me two sets in the same seat!

Went ahead and corrected this error using TrainSplit's seat selector function, only to find out onboard that over half of our seats were eventually double booked...

 

[Falcon1200]

There are Avanti departures from Glasgow Central at 0736, 1M08 to Euston direct, and 0800, 9M51 to Euston via Birmingham. Sitting on 1M08 one morning two passengers had reserved the same seat; Fortunately the Train Manager was passing and quickly established that the second person was booked on 9M51.

 

[infobleep]

Many years around in 2006, I was travelling from London King's Cross to Durham and their eas a double booking of our seats.

No idea if it was common back then but a friend complained a d I think got zone complimentary tickets. I didn't complain.

 

[SteveP29]

Update: Contacted Trainsplit, they've asked me to contact the other passenger to ask if it's OK to pass on her details to them so they can look into it, which she has agreed to.

 

[Deerfold]

I wonder how often, passengers with reserved seats on cancelled train think their reserved seats apply to the later train?

On Thalys (now part of Eurostar) reservations start to be reserved from opposite ends of alternate trains, so, where fewer than half of seats are reserved, you do keep your seat reservation (or at least you did in early 2020). Of course that can't work on many of our busiest trains.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Dec 2024 ==

Many years around in 2006, I was travelling from London King's Cross to Durham and their eas a double booking of our seats.

No idea if it was common back then but a friend complained a d I think got zone complimentary tickets. I didn't complain.

I had it on a Shipley to Kings Cross service around 15 years ago. Both of us were on Advance tickets. The guard examined both tickets and found one of us another seat. He said he'd seen it a couple of times in several years.

 

[Adam Williams]

Update: Contacted Trainsplit, they've asked me to contact the other passenger to ask if it's OK to pass on her details to them so they can look into it, which she has agreed to.

I've emailed her this morning; for the benefit of the thread, there were no faults found with @SteveP29's reservations as booked by TrainSplit and the booking continues to be able to be recalled/retrieved in the industry reservations system.

If the other pax gets back to us, hopefully it'll be possible to find out the root cause.

 

[SteveP29]

I've emailed her this morning; for the benefit of the thread, there were no faults found with @SteveP29's reservations as booked by TrainSplit and the booking continues to be able to be recalled/retrieved in the industry reservations system.

If the other pax gets back to us, hopefully it'll be possible to find out the root cause.

I take it there's been no contact and the situation, as it stands, remains a mystery?

 

[Adam Williams]

I take it there's been no contact and the situation, as it stands, remains a mystery?

'fraid so

Read the email but didn't reply

 

[Haywain]

'fraid so

Read the email but didn't reply

One might think that they are aware of what went wrong and would prefer not to be 'outed', even anonymously.

 

[Adam Williams]

One might think that they are aware of what went wrong and would prefer not to be 'outed', even anonymously.

Mmmm, I did wonder if they'd perhaps refunded it and then travelled. Purely speculation, of course, I don't know.

 

[Haywain]

Mmmm, I did wonder if they'd perhaps refunded it and then travelled. Purely speculation, of course, I don't know.

Or just changed it in some way and forgotten - an honest mistake that I've come across more than once.

 

[Mainline421]

One extremely rare genuine case of this occurred when I had a reservation from Perth to London on the Sleeper, only to find the seat occupied and labeled as reserved for both Inverness to Crewe and Perth to Euston on the same slip!