Has VTEC changed its default reservation policy?

[SaveECRewards]

I was booking some tickets via the VTEC website (as there's now no first class quiet coach I need the seat selector to grab a seat in coach K nearest the kitchen, before I could book on a better site and just select quiet coach in the seat preferences).

When I went into the seat selector I noticed coach L was the busiest. By default VTEC (and East Coast before that) used to allocate the reservations starting from coach M, this was for two separate journeys.

Has anyone noticed the same? It's highly unlikely that so many people decided to move themselves.

 

[yorkie]

Yes I noticed that too.

 

[cf111]

Noticed this when booking some cheapo Inverness-Stirling First Advances on the Chieftain recently. Stuck with coach L out of habit.

 

[Chrism20]

I booked tickets the other day for November and it put me into M for both journeys.

Obviously that far out there weren’t many seats taken but the majority were in M.

 

[SaveECRewards]

I've just tried a dummy booking for August and it's put me in coach L by default

If I look at the seat map, M is almost empty (the priority seats are the only ones blocked), L has a few people in as does K.

They've definitely changed something.

 

[SaveECRewards]

I've just thought of a possible reason for this. On the 9 car Azuma (see attached seat map) K is a composite first/standard coach, M is half taken with the kitchen leaving L as the only full size first class carriage.

So they may be changing this now so in the future if there's a set swap with an Azuma (at least the 9 car one) there'll be less juggling round if most people happen to be seated in L anyway.

 

[westv]

No change in the lack of a seat map for me but I did a dummy booking and I would previously have been given coach C but now it gives me coach D

 

[SaveECRewards]

No change in the lack of a seat map for me but I did a dummy booking and I would previously have been given coach C but now it gives me coach D

That's my Azuma theory out the window as the 9 car Azuma doesn't have a coach D and on the 5 car variant coach D is the composite standard/first coach so it doesn't look like it's trying to reserve in coaches that'll still work after a set swap.

 

[cactustwirly]

I've just thought of a possible reason for this. On the 9 car Azuma (see attached seat map) K is a composite first/standard coach, M is half taken with the kitchen leaving L as the only full size first class carriage.

So they may be changing this now so in the future if there's a set swap with an Azuma (at least the 9 car one) there'll be less juggling round if most people happen to be seated in L anyway.

A set swap is very unlikely, no 800 has been swapped onto a HST diagram, however the reverse had happened on the GWML

 

[47271]

Like the OP I avoid the VTEC site like the plague since they messed with it, and because I dislike VTEC, but for the few bookings I have to make with them I noticed that First Class started defaulting to Coach L late last year.

My theory was that catering had become so overstretched and unreliable that they reckoned they might save a bit of time by seating the majority of passengers as close as possible to the kitchen. Lol.

 

[Chrism20]

I’ve just checked another couple of dates in November and I’m getting M in an HST and L in an electric set.

 

[Kite159]

Does it really matter which coach is set up to be the default coach on the online booking? You can always change it to be a quieter coach, or if you have a favourite seat. Even East Coast did it when you could have two carriages being highly reserved but other carriages being mostly unreserved.

I mean other TOCs do the same, reserve a seat on XC and unless you select a table the default tends to be coach D (unless it is full), Virgin West Coast the default for standard class is coach E (where it used to be coach C before they swapped over the unreserved coaches).

 

[SaveECRewards]

Does it really matter which coach is set up to be the default coach on the online booking? You can always change it to be a quieter coach, or if you have a favourite seat. Even East Coast did it when you could have two carriages being highly reserved but other carriages being mostly unreserved.

I mean other TOCs do the same, reserve a seat on XC and unless you select a table the default tends to be coach D (unless it is full), Virgin West Coast the default for standard class is coach E (where it used to be coach C before they swapped over the unreserved coaches).

Who said it has to matter? A lot of things we discuss don't really matter. I was just seeing if it was a conscious change, or a blip I experienced and whether there was any reason for it to change. Just because I'm pointing out something VTEC does doesn't mean it's a criticism (I was generally positive about them until they started messing with the staff rotas in 2017 affecting the on-board service, then the dreadful booking engine came along).

If they've changed the default there must be a reason to it. Thanks to @Chrism20 I discover that on an HST (I've also double checked this and a random HST booking still defaulted to M) nothing has changed so this just affects the MK4 sets for some reason.

Can anyone remember back before 2011? I know in 2011 (when restaurants were scrapped and the first class quiet coach was introduced) they started filling up the train from M but you could get K just by selecting quiet coach. But looking at some random bookings that predate the quiet coach and the seat selector I was seated in coach K or occasionally L so it looks like filling up from M started along with the introduction of complimentary catering.