• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

Hull Trains : new trains messing up seat reservations?

Status
Not open for further replies.
S

swaldman

Member
Joined
19 Jan 2013
Messages
375
When I book Advance tickets, I always request a table seat. I accept that I may not always get it, but... the last two return journeys I've done with Hull Trains - which are the times I've used them since the 802s came in - I've,
  • Requested a table seat
  • Got on board and found that my reserved seat was an airline seat
  • Noticed that there were a large number of unreserved table seats (and mostly been lucky enough to sit in one)
To have this happen four times (two returns) feels like something is wrong. Sure enough, today I booked a couple of months ahead, got my seat reservations, checked them against the seating plan, and they are not table seats.

If all the tables are gone, fair enough. When there are still unreserved tables when I board... has anybody else found this? Is something broken?

EDIT: I just checked the old 180 seating plans, and the seats I was given this time are not tables there either. One of them doesn't even exist on the 180s. So it's not that they're using the old setup... maybe they just don't care about table/airline preferences and ignore them?
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

Kite159

Kite159

Veteran Member
Joined
27 Jan 2014
Messages
19,237
Location
West of Andover
I would imagine the booking engine is using the layout of the 180s for table/airline seats and the seating layout of a 802 is different to a 180 so what is a table on a 180 is an airline on a 802.

Just be thankful they haven't suspended seat reservations during the stock changeover, like some other operators (TPE)
 
S

swaldman

Member
Joined
19 Jan 2013
Messages
375
Kite159 said:
I would imagine the booking engine is using the layout of the 180s for table/airline seats and the seating layout of a 802 is different to a 180 so what is a table on a 180 is an airline on a 802.

Just be thankful they haven't suspended seat reservations during the stock changeover, like some other operators (TPE)
Click to expand...

I am indeed thankful about that!
I edited, probably after you were already writing your reply, to say that I've checked the 180 seating plans, and the seats I'm being given are not tables there either. Plus some of them are seat numbers that didn't exist on the 180s. So it appears they have switched the system over, but perhaps they haven't told it where tables are...
 
Kite159

Kite159

Veteran Member
Joined
27 Jan 2014
Messages
19,237
Location
West of Andover
Remember you can use TrainSplit or TrainsCanBeCheaper as they have seat selectors for a better chance of a table seat
 
tpjm

tpjm

Member
Joined
25 Jan 2019
Messages
484
Location
The North
Kite159 said:
Just be thankful they haven't suspended seat reservations during the stock changeover, like some other operators (TPE)
Click to expand...
TPE haven't suspended reservations? Just the same as what I assume HT will have done which is to ensure that whatever stock is in, there is a cross-over in seat numbers / coaches.
 
Kite159

Kite159

Veteran Member
Joined
27 Jan 2014
Messages
19,237
Location
West of Andover
tpjm said:
TPE haven't suspended reservations? Just the same as what I assume HT will have done which is to ensure that whatever stock is in, there is a cross-over in seat numbers / coaches.
Click to expand...

TPE suspended reservations on the Manchester - Scotland trains for a period last year due to not knowing when the 397s would eventually enter service
 
S

samuelmorris

Established Member
Joined
18 Jul 2013
Messages
5,121
Location
Brentwood, Essex
swaldman said:
When I book Advance tickets, I always request a table seat. I accept that I may not always get it, but... the last two return journeys I've done with Hull Trains - which are the times I've used them since the 802s came in - I've,
  • Requested a table seat
  • Got on board and found that my reserved seat was an airline seat
  • Noticed that there were a large number of unreserved table seats (and mostly been lucky enough to sit in one)
To have this happen four times (two returns) feels like something is wrong. Sure enough, today I booked a couple of months ahead, got my seat reservations, checked them against the seating plan, and they are not table seats.

If all the tables are gone, fair enough. When there are still unreserved tables when I board... has anybody else found this? Is something broken?

EDIT: I just checked the old 180 seating plans, and the seats I was given this time are not tables there either. One of them doesn't even exist on the 180s. So it's not that they're using the old setup... maybe they just don't care about table/airline preferences and ignore them?
Click to expand...
I tried reserving a seat and even the website gave me the opposite of what I chose. Select 'window seat' and got an airline seat. Selected 'no preference' and got a window seat. The website is clearly bugged but no great surprise, it's an awful website. I booked a ticket with Northern on the same day and their site was vastly superior for all sorts of reasons.
Reservations were indeed paper on the train, I gather the 802s haven't had their PIS (and thus seat reservations) enabled yet? Screens were off throughout the journey, inside and out.

Once I had reserved a seat online, however, the seat I got was indeed the one I chose.
 
GW43125

GW43125

Established Member
Joined
8 Dec 2014
Messages
2,047
It all seems to be a little bit stuffed at the moment. On Sunday three of us came back to London, we'd booked three of us round a table on an 802, instead a 180 turned up. They'd renumbered the seats so all the reservations had seats but they didn't tally so our three round a table was actually two at a table and a third two rows back. Hopefully all the 802s will be in service soon.
 
H

HullRailMan

Member
Joined
8 Oct 2018
Messages
318
HT have matched reservations to the 802 layout since before Christmas - the 180s had their seat numbers changed to match the 802s. However, the total number of seats available to reserve was capped at the number of seats on the 180s. Now that the 180s have all gone, the number of available seats to reserve will increase. I guess in the mean time seat preferences have not been guaranteed at the expense of at least providing a reserved seat.
 
S

swaldman

Member
Joined
19 Jan 2013
Messages
375
Chew-chew said:
HT have matched reservations to the 802 layout since before Christmas - the 180s had their seat numbers changed to match the 802s. However, the total number of seats available to reserve was capped at the number of seats on the 180s. Now that the 180s have all gone, the number of available seats to reserve will increase. I guess in the mean time seat preferences have not been guaranteed at the expense of at least providing a reserved seat.
Click to expand...

Ah, that makes some sense. So the unreserved tables are probably ones that didn't exist on 180s. Or, they've temporarily had a simple bucket of seats without marking any as table, aisle, etc
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top