Sleeper with Priv

[jamess]

Hi

With Serco now offering 12 month reservations, I have booked for myself and two friends to travel in September next year, between Euston and Fort Bill.

One of my friends would also like his parents to come with us and they are both retired staff with Priv cards

As the Fort Bill portion is known to fill up (and we are travelling on a Friday evening too), I was hoping to be able to book the Priv tickets now, but seem unable to do so, with Serco saying go to a booking office and VTWC at Crewe telling me that they can only sell three months in advance.

Is anyone able to offer any help on how to book these?

Thanks
James

 

[steamybrian]

About two months ago I wanted to purchase a privilege sleeper berth from Euston to Edinburgh. I tried Caledonian Sleepers but they could not book it so they said to go to my local station. I went to my local South Eastern station ticket office and two of their experienced booking clerks spent 15 minutes on the computer trying to book the seat for me without success. This included an internal telephone call to Caledonian Sleepers who said I should go personally to Euston ticket office to buy it.!!!. In the end I gave up and travelled up daytime and booked overnight accommodation.
I too would be interested to learn how to book a priv. sleeper berth.

 

[43094]

If it helps, I booked a PRIV sleeper ticket for mid - February, last week (so, more than three months in advance).

A lot depends how experienced the clerk is - I'd assume those on the WCML would be pretty clued up.

I booked mine at York, they're getting used to me and a couple of others booking them there now

 

[CyrusWuff]

Sadly, this is one of the few occasions where I would recommend avoiding Marylebone, who are normally so good at such things, as last time I tried to book a Sleeper with a mixed gender couple there it took them half an hour and a phone call to get it done.

I should note that this was not due to the staff themselves, but limitations imposed by their ticket machines and the Ticket Office not having access to Journey Planner to be able to do the reservations manually.