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LNER reservation issues

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williamn

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I'm trying to book a single London to Newcastle on 28 May. Despite there being advance tickets available for the 09.30, 10.30 and 11.30am trains when I go to seating preferences I get an error message saying there are no seats left. I don't get how there can be advance fares available but no seats. And are so many trains really full almost two weeks out?! I've been in touch with LNER via twitter who have just said there is no availability.
 
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Haywain

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On the Friday if the bank holiday weekend it is quite possible that the problem is lack of availability. However, you shouldn’t be seeing Advance tickets as available if no reservation can be made. We will investigate further tomorrow.
 

BluePenguin

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Excellent! I knew there would be an exclamation along those lines. Hopefully you can get it sorted somehow
 

robbeech

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Hasn’t this “advances showing as available when no seats available” been a problem for years? Or was it fixed and this is a different issue?
 

DanNCL

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It's been an issue for several LNER services to/from Newcastle lately, has been for a long time. I encountered this issue as recently as Friday last week, but it's been an issue ever since compulsory reservations were introduced. The TVMs at Newcastle often have the issue of not selling you walk up tickets without an itinerary, but then whenever you select any itinerary involving an LNER service it comes up with the error message, the only solution is to select a completely different service from the one you actually want, usually a TPE or another non-reservation TOC service, simply to get the ticket. Then you can go on the LNER website and succesfully make a reservation for the same service the TVM said was unavailable. Same is happening at the ticket office too, they'll say there are no reservations on the service you want so you end up having to get them to make a reservation on a different service or they won't sell you the ticket, but then you can make the reservation for that same service they said was unavailable succesfully online.

This really needs sorting out. It's putting people off travelling by train, I know several people who've had these issues with the TVMs and ticket offices simply trying to get from Newcastle to Durham who've given up and got the X21 bus instead as it's much less hassle.
 

Haywain

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Hasn’t this “advances showing as available when no seats available” been a problem for years? Or was it fixed and this is a different issue?
It's a different problem. Now that we are aware of it we can try and find a solution.
It's been an issue for several LNER services to/from Newcastle lately, has been for a long time. I encountered this issue as recently as Friday last week, but it's been an issue ever since compulsory reservations were introduced. The TVMs at Newcastle often have the issue of not selling you walk up tickets without an itinerary, but then whenever you select any itinerary involving an LNER service it comes up with the error message, the only solution is to select a completely different service from the one you actually want, usually a TPE or another non-reservation TOC service, simply to get the ticket. Then you can go on the LNER website and succesfully make a reservation for the same service the TVM said was unavailable. Same is happening at the ticket office too, they'll say there are no reservations on the service you want so you end up having to get them to make a reservation on a different service or they won't sell you the ticket, but then you can make the reservation for that same service they said was unavailable succesfully online.

This really needs sorting out. It's putting people off travelling by train, I know several people who've had these issues with the TVMs and ticket offices simply trying to get from Newcastle to Durham who've given up and got the X21 bus instead as it's much less hassle.
Thanks for your help, but we cannot resolve problems until we are aware of them.

I'm trying to book a single London to Newcastle on 28 May. Despite there being advance tickets available for the 09.30, 10.30 and 11.30am trains when I go to seating preferences I get an error message saying there are no seats left. I don't get how there can be advance fares available but no seats. And are so many trains really full almost two weeks out?! I've been in touch with LNER via twitter who have just said there is no availability.
Unfortunately, this is a case of trains being full, subject to social distancing. I'm sorry I can't be the bearer of better news.
 

DanNCL

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Thanks for your help, but we cannot resolve problems until we are aware of them.
I have made LNER aware of these issues on several occasions, if those dealing with the public aren't passing it on to the correct teams to be sorted that isn't my issue as a customer, I've done my bit by reporting it and I shouldn't have to have detail it on a forum for the correct team to find out about it, the company should already have passed that on to you when it was reported to them.

It's not your fault, I know the team will be trying their best with the info they have, but it's a poor show from the company to not be giving you all the info about issues that have been reported to them from the customers.
 

Haywain

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I have made LNER aware of these issues on several occasions, if those dealing with the public aren't passing it on to the correct teams to be sorted that isn't my issue as a customer, I've done my bit by reporting it and I shouldn't have to have detail it on a forum for the correct team to find out about it, the company should already have passed that on to you when it was reported to them.

It's not your fault, I know the team will be trying their best with the info they have, but it's a poor show from the company to not be giving you all the info about issues that have been reported to them from the customers.
If you come across this again could you let me have the details in a PM, please? We can then look into it. As far as we can tell the issue that has affected the OP is an isolated incident rather than an ongoing problem and without further details we can do no more.
 

DanNCL

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If you come across this again could you let me have the details in a PM, please? We can then look into it. As far as we can tell the issue that has affected the OP is an isolated incident rather than an ongoing problem and without further details we can do no more.
Not a problem, I'm travelling again on Wednesday so if I encounter this issue again (or for that matter any other issue with the reservation system) I'll PM you.
 

Haywain

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Not a problem, I'm travelling again on Wednesday so if I encounter this issue again (or for that matter any other issue with the reservation system) I'll PM you.
Thanks. And for information, we removed the ability to buy tickets for LNER services without itineraries from our TVMs when we went to compulsory reservation.
 
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