• 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!

1st Class Ticket but 2nd Class seat reservation - on Virgin Trains

Status
Not open for further replies.

sburnley

Member
Joined
23 May 2011
Messages
63
I have booked an advance First ticket from Euston to Wolverhampton travelling on the 15:23 train on March 21. The timetable shows that the 15:23 is the through train to Wolverhampton only - not for Chester for example - so I expect it to be a Pendolino.

Virgin Trains have allocated me a seat reservation in Coach E, which on a Pendolino is standard class.

My preference was for "window" - so does this mean that First Class is fully reserved already and they could only offer me a window seat in standard class? Or could it be that the 15:23 is on this occasion a voyager (which seems most unlikely) in which coach E is First Class? Or is it all a bit of a cock up?

Has anyone else had this happen to them - and what did you do about it?
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

AlterEgo

Veteran Member
Joined
30 Dec 2008
Messages
20,032
Location
No longer here
This service is operated by a Voyager (as are quite a few on the Euston-Wolverhampton route). First Class is in Coach E.

It is not possible to place a reservation in Coach E on a Pendolino, as it is a fully unreservable coach.
 

yorkie

Forum Staff
Staff Member
Administrator
Joined
6 Jun 2005
Messages
67,429
Location
Yorkshire

sburnley

Member
Joined
23 May 2011
Messages
63
Wow, thanks for those swift responses. I had not realised that Voyagers were diagrammed for this trip.


The ticket is indeed described as First Class. It's one of the "print at home" ones which seems to me to be an excellent arrangement (and I know that I need the correct credit/debit card with me for ID when I come to use it).
 

sonic2009

Established Member
Joined
19 Jan 2010
Messages
4,915
Location
Crewe
It's a very busy Voyager in First as I found out on Thursday of last week when trying to board at Watford Junction last week.
 

DaveNewcastle

Established Member
Joined
21 Dec 2007
Messages
7,387
Location
Newcastle (unless I'm out)
Has anyone else had this happen to them - and what did you do about it?
Yes. I have had several journeys booked in the last few weeks where the Ticket is marked as 'First Class' but the accompanying Seat Reservation vouchers were market as 'Standard'. Despite that, the actual reserved seats and coach have been in first class accomodation, and the on-screen confirmation and email confirmation all refer to First Class.

I'm aware that a few others have been issued with similarly 'mixed' Tickets and Reservation coupons.
Its clearly another of those errors in the WebTIS software which apparently is so complicated that it takes weeks and weeks of software developers time to fix (or is too far down their list of priorities).

What have I done about it?
Just made a simple decision of preference on the day as to whether to sit in First or Standard. Once it was actually more convenient to sit at the Standard end of the train; on others I've sat in First. It hasn't seemed important enough an issue to bring it to the attention of any of the Guards and I've only encountered one Guard who spotted the discrepancy, firstly thinking that I was sitting in First with a Standard Reservation, then noticing the coach identifier and Ticket were both First, he seemed entirely unsurprised at the error.

Makes you wonder how long this error has been ocurring without anyone noticing. Anyone from the industry care to comment on that?
 

bengolding

Member
Joined
31 Aug 2008
Messages
679
Virgin should not put a Voyager on the 15:23 and very busy 17:45 from Wolves back to Euston. I avoid this train from Birmingham International as First is often full in the single carriage, plus the Evening Meal is inferior to that on the Pendolino.

But I guess it can't be helped with the current diagram. 08:03 to New St / 09:50 return / 11:43 to New St / 13:30 return.
 

sonic2009

Established Member
Joined
19 Jan 2010
Messages
4,915
Location
Crewe
Virgin should not put a Voyager on the 15:23 and very busy 17:45 from Wolves back to Euston. I avoid this train from Birmingham International as First is often full in the single carriage, plus the Evening Meal is inferior to that on the Pendolino.

But I guess it can't be helped with the current diagram. 08:03 to New St / 09:50 return / 11:43 to New St / 13:30 return.

I'd avoid the evening meal ATM after my experiences last week
 

bengolding

Member
Joined
31 Aug 2008
Messages
679
The Chicken and Rice I had last Thursday evening from Euston was perfectly acceptable and the Super Voyager mini Lamb meal wasn't too bad the day before.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top