Seat reservation frustration

[redreni]

I am trying to reserve a seat on GWR between Paddington and Exeter next Saturday morning. My experience so far has been:

The retailer (Chiltern) issued me an itinerary that includes the 08:03 between Paddington and Exeter but the booking confirmation says "You have no seats reserved". I was a bit surprised by this as I thought, even with a flexible ticket, the train would have had to have seats available at time of booking or else the retailer couldn't sell the ticket against that itinerary, and since seat reservations are recommended for that service, I expected to be given one automatically.

I tried TPE, but it just says "seats can't be reserved on this service". It says this on the website and on the app, with every different device, browser and OS I have access to. It looks like it would allow me to reserve a bicycle space, but seat reservations are greyed out and show the "unavailable" message.

I tried a ticket office this afternoon (Southeastern) and the chap tried to reserve me a seat as per my itinerary, but he said his TIS prompted him for the booking reference (which I've never heard of before). I provided it, he entered it into the TIS, but it wouldn't allow him to make a reservation.

I'm out of ideas and will have to hope I can find an unreserved seat, or that a reserved seat becomes available by dint of the person who reserved it not using it.

Unless anyone knows an alternative?

If I try a ticket office that uses a different TIS, would they be able to reserve a seat without the booking reference?

 

[800001]

I am trying to reserve a seat on GWR between Paddington and Exeter next Saturday morning. My experience so far has been:

The retailer (Chiltern) issued me an itinerary that includes the 08:03 between Paddington and Exeter but the booking confirmation says "You have no seats reserved". I was a bit surprised by this as I thought, even with a flexible ticket, the train would have had to have seats available at time of booking or else the retailer couldn't sell the ticket against that itinerary, and since seat reservations are recommended for that service, I expected to be given one automatically.

I tried TPE, but it just says "seats can't be reserved on this service". It says this on the website and on the app, with every different device, browser and OS I have access to. It looks like it would allow me to reserve a bicycle space, but seat reservations are greyed out and show the "unavailable" message.

I tried a ticket office this afternoon (Southeastern) and the chap tried to reserve me a seat as per my itinerary, but he said his TIS prompted him for the booking reference (which I've never heard of before). I provided it, he entered it into the TIS, but it wouldn't allow him to make a reservation.

I'm out of ideas and will have to hope I can find an unreserved seat, or that a reserved seat becomes available by dint of the person who reserved it not using it.

Unless anyone knows an alternative?

If I try a ticket office that uses a different TIS, would they be able to reserve a seat without the booking reference?

Have you tried contacting GWR the toc you are actually travelling with? Tweet them, ring them etc?

Also presuming you have booked an open ticket, not an advance, did you select yes to the question 'would you like to reserve. Seat'?

I've done a dummy booking on the Chiltern website and it asked me that, and before payment page it's clearly stated wether you have or have not got a reserved seat. So before paying for the ticket it clearly shows reserved seat number.

 

[Dewedin]

Can a TOC block standalone seat reservations? I've also done dummy bookings for this train on a couple of sites which successfully reserves a seat, but not a standalone reservation via the TPE website.

 

[redreni]

Have you tried contacting GWR the toc you are actually travelling with? Tweet them, ring them etc?

I'd rather not if I can avoid it. The ticket is for a longer journey that includes the London to Exeter leg, but is slightly better value than the point-to-point ticket between Paddington and Exeter. So I'm a bit reluctant to draw GWR's attention to the ticket any more than I have to.

 

[800001]

I'd rather not if I can avoid it. The ticket is for a longer journey that includes the London to Exeter leg, but is slightly better value than the point-to-point ticket between Paddington and Exeter. So I'm a bit reluctant to draw GWR's attention to the ticket any more than I have to.

I suppose the only good thing is, GWR trains on that route use the coloured lights for reservations, so if boarding the train as soon as it is announced at Paddington, then as long as a seat shows a green light, it is a vacant seat for the whole journey.

 

[redreni]

I suppose the only good thing is, GWR trains on that route use the coloured lights for reservations, so if boarding the train as soon as it is announced at Paddington, then as long as a seat shows a green light, it is a vacant seat for the whole journey.

Yeah, I'm sure it'll be fine, I was more curious as to why the usual methods of geting a seat reservation aren't working.

Can a TOC block standalone seat reservations? I've also done dummy bookings for this train on a couple of sites which successfully reserves a seat, but not a standalone reservation via the TPE website.

Yes, I did wonder. Could the debacle that led to GWR being told to turn off their standalone reservation system - at least as far as reservations on other TOCs' services are concerned - have led them to stop other TOCs making standalone reservations for their services? And could they really prevent other TOCs' ticket offices reserving seats on their trains? I always thought the method of getting a reservation from a ticket office was foolproof, provided the ticket office clerk is satisfied that it is appropriate to make a reservation for you. Apparently not...

 

[CyrusWuff]

Having just made a dummy booking in Fujitsu Journey Planner, there are seats available between Paddington and Exeter St Davids on that train, and I got a seat allocated rather than a counted place.

Timetablehistory.com doesn't show any amendments to the schedule since the base May timetable data was released, so I'm unsure why the Chiltern site was unable to make a reservation for you.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I suppose the only good thing is, GWR trains on that route use the coloured lights for reservations, so if boarding the train as soon as it is announced at Paddington, then as long as a seat shows a green light, it is a vacant seat for the whole journey.

Off the top of my head, on GWR's IETs the whole of carriage G is left unreserved.

 

[Mainline421]

I tried a ticket office this afternoon (Southeastern) and the chap tried to reserve me a seat as per my itinerary, but he said his TIS prompted him for the booking reference (which I've never heard of before). I provided it, he entered it into the TIS, but it wouldn't allow him to make a reservation.

Not sure what’s going on there, but you definitely don’t need a booking reference to get a seat reservation at a ticket office, so he’s doing something wrong. That said, I’d consider a seat reservation for this journey to be a waste of time anyway.

 

[Haywain]

Having just made a dummy booking in Fujitsu Journey Planner, there are seats available between Paddington and Exeter St Davids on that train, and I got a seat allocated rather than a counted place.

I tried test bookings on the LNER app and got two different seats, one for an Advance and another for a Super Off Peak.

 

[Thames99]

At Paddington it is usually best to wait on the bridge rather than the Lawn where most people wait. Passengers tend to get on the train at the back as soon as they see free seats. As soon as the train is announced or you know the platform you will be in the lead to find seats towards the front of the train. Often trains leave Paddington with latecomers standing at the back and half empty coaches at the front.