Two valid reservations for the same seat

[Norb]

My wife and were travelling on East Coast from Kings Cross to Leeds last Monday on a First Advance, with seat reservations booked.

Shortly before departure, another couple arrived, and claimed that we were occupying their seats. On inspecting their reservation vouchers it did appear that they were booked on the same service in the same seats.

One of the stewards examined their tickets and suggested that as the next first class carriage had no reservations, they should select seats in there.

Has anyone encountered this before?

If the first class accommodation had been fully booked/occupied, what would have happened?

Interested in what any train managers/guards on here would do in such a situation

 

[Yorkshirebelle]

I've seen it quite a few times-mostly on First Transpennine Express services! I've also had it happen to myself twice, the common denominator seems to be 'the Trainline' company who have always seemed to do the double booking!! It's certainly something that could do with investigating but no single company seems to want to take responsibility for it!!

 

[Class377]

I've had this a couple of times on CrossCountry, once using the 10 minute reservations and once using an advance ticket. With the advance I was upgraded to first (I didn't fancy arguing with a table of 4 bulky builder types who were doing Plymouth-Newcastle when I was "only" on for 3 hours!) and using TMR I simply moved to the unreserved seat around the table of 4 to let the other 3 sit down.

Virgin certainly refund you a percentage of your ticket if you couldn't use your booked seat so that's an option, although unless first was declassified I imagine most longer-distance services would have spare seats in first for most of the journey?

I have no clue whatsoever on how the reservation system works, but I guess that some companies only update their "available seat" list on set intervals rather than seats are sold? I'm probably completely wrong, but that could explain why a booked seat could be sold as available?

 

[cf111]

I've had this a couple of times on CrossCountry, once using the 10 minute reservations and once using an advance ticket. With the advance I was upgraded to first (I didn't fancy arguing with a table of 4 bulky builder types who were doing Plymouth-Newcastle when I was "only" on for 3 hours!) and using TMR I simply moved to the unreserved seat around the table of 4 to let the other 3 sit down.

Virgin certainly refund you a percentage of your ticket if you couldn't use your booked seat so that's an option, although unless first was declassified I imagine most longer-distance services would have spare seats in first for most of the journey?

I have no clue whatsoever on how the reservation system works, but I guess that some companies only update their "available seat" list on set intervals rather than seats are sold? I'm probably completely wrong, but that could explain why a booked seat could be sold as available?

I've always assumed that it's "real-time" because it's linked into the Advance ticketing system which is based on quotas. So basically the system would need to know "I have 1 seat left at this price tier. When I have sold this I will need to move to the next tier immediately." Like I say, this is an assumption and probably wrong!

 

[Clip]

Had this last week coming back frmo up north. We had sat down first and the woman who had the same reservations was adamant that we should move as we had her seats even after we showed her our coupons showing the same seats and timed train. She really wanted us to move and caused quite a scene but I just ignored her till the guard came to sort it out for her.

Interestingly enough her tickets were Advance but ours we just a discounted ticket done through telesales so I guess something didnt speak to something else quite correctly.

 

[Emyr]

Could be a rare condition whereby the same seat is selected for both customers from the available options before either of them can mark that seat as reserved, and the second reservation instruction isn't double-checking the availability.

 

[maniacmartin]

There is only only central database AFAIK - the 'National Reservation System' run by Rail Settlement Plan, which all reservation-capable TISes and booking engines talk to. It does sound like it could be a race condition in the API/

 

[rebmcr]

Surely to prevent that there's a handshake in the API with a random cooldown?

 

[northwichcat]

Virgin certainly refund you a percentage of your ticket if you couldn't use your booked seat so that's an option, although unless first was declassified I imagine most longer-distance services would have spare seats in first for most of the journey?

Unless they've changed it only if you can't find an alternative seat and then the compensation is limited to 5% of the ticket value in the form of RTVs. In the case of a £12.50 Advance ticket they'd only be obliged to give you a voucher for 65p.

 

[Lockwood]

You both have a ticket from A to B which is only valid when you are sat in a specific seat?
Sit on the other person's lap

 

[Class377]

I've always assumed that it's "real-time" because it's linked into the Advance ticketing system which is based on quotas. So basically the system would need to know "I have 1 seat left at this price tier. When I have sold this I will need to move to the next tier immediately." Like I say, this is an assumption and probably wrong!

That sounds right (and is backed up by other posts here) - I was just wondering if maybe one booking system (possibly a third party one?) was "rogue"?

I still can't quite understand when someone booked advance tickets with reservations, and I used the 10 minute reservation system about an hour before the train arrived to end up with exactly the same seats?

 

[Norb]

For further information, Our first advance was booked on 28th May for travel 11th August on the East Coast website

 

[Rapidash]

Had this happen to me on on a XC service Bristol to Paignton a fortnight ago. Train manager was a top bloke, saw there was fat chance of me getting a seat any where else in standard (4 car Voyager headed to Paignton in the height of summer - really?!) and sent me up to almost-empty First Class - first time I'd ever been in FC!

 

[STEVIEBOY1]

I have had that happen from time to time in the UK & in Europe too, it seems an age old problem.