Seat reservations

[tivoli]

Sometimes when travelling as a group on a long journey. it is difficult to reserve seats together, especially if for a part of the journey a single traveller on a short journey blocks a potential reservation. Could it or should it be possible to identify any existing reservation in advance and reserve seats around it for at least part of the group's journey?

 

[trainophile]

Not much fun for the individual travelling alone, surrounded by a large group who may be on the noisy side, as groups of friends can tend to be .

(I only replied because I thought it a shame that no-one else had. I have no idea really.)

 

[Searle]

If you're travelling on East Coast, you can go through with booking a ticket, until the stage where you manually choose a seat, then you can see where people are sitting. They're the only TOC to do that atm (that I know of), so I can't advise for the rest

 

[bb21]

CrossCountry is the other one who offer this facility.

 

[IanD]

Can't you also do it at a booking office?

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Can't you also do it at a booking office?

You can book specific seats, or near specific seats, and book multiple seats, but you can't easily check what groups of seats are available.

 

[CallySleeper]

Can't you also do it at a booking office?

In theory. I had an experience a couple of weeks ago where I knew a certain seat was free, but the clerk at my local office wasn't able to reserve it - or any other seat in that carriage.

 

[greatkingrat]

Was that because that carriage was unreservable?

 

[CallySleeper]

Was that because that carriage was unreservable?

Nope.

 

[Starmill]

You can go to a quiet booking office or a travel centre somewhere and take a printout of the train you expect to be available's seating plan with you. Assuming the ticket clerk is willing to do it without sight of the same number of tickets as people (or if you already have the tickets and can take them all along) you can then both probably work it out between you. It won't always be easy to tell where the free seats are though because other TOCs to XC and EC don't seem willing to implement a 'choose your own seats' feature, which is a shame as it is one of the most helpful things I find.

 

[kieron]

It won't always be easy to tell where the free seats are though because other TOCs to XC and EC don't seem willing to implement a 'choose your own seats' feature, which is a shame as it is one of the most helpful things I find.

One advantage I can see of not providing this is where a TOCs use a variety of trains on some services. If (say) a 150 is swapped in for a 175, they can still put out reservations, but the doors, luggage racks and tables may not be where you expected. If you haven't promised a specific layout, people can't complain as much.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

In theory. I had an experience a couple of weeks ago where I knew a certain seat was free, but the clerk at my local office wasn't able to reserve it - or any other seat in that carriage.

It is entirely possible for this to happen, in a number of ways, but without knowing specifics it's difficult to pass judgement on the exact reason.

 

[CallySleeper]

It is entirely possible for this to happen, in a number of ways, but without knowing specifics it's difficult to pass judgement on the exact reason.

One of my own theories is that the TOC in question (EC) don't allow specific reservations like this to be made in this manner. And since it wasn't an EC office I was trying this at, I felt that might have played some part in it. But that's purely speculation.