Booking Specific Seats

[ukrob]

Situation:

Someone has a (cheap) advance ticket booked and now I have decided to go too and am going to book a ticket, the quota of tickets at £10 has gone, they are now on the next tier which is £14 or so.

Assuming the aisle seat is still available (the already booked one is a window seat),if I book at a ticket office how much flexibility do they have with what seats are offered? The staff are friendly so if it possible, they will do their best to help.

For example will the window seat be part of the £10 quota and therefore already be gone?

I wouldn't normally be too fussed and would just ask the conductor if it is ok to sit somewhere else with my advance ticket, but the service is a South TPE one and the diagram is a Class 170 which usually means something resembling a rugby scrum when it arrives at Manchester Piccadilly before it departs.

 

[yorkie]

If you do it at a station or by 'phone then I believe they can select a specific seat.

I'm not sure if the seats are part of the quota. I wouldn't have thought so, but someone once told me they were.

If this is TPE then there may even be no reservations put out anyway, and even if there are, there will be plenty of unreserved seats, so if it's not a peak service you should have no problems sitting elsewhere. Providing the reservation label has no further reservations on it (e.g. say you were booked to Donny, someone else could in theory be booked on the same seat from Donny to Scunthorpe), then it's a good idea to remove it to avoid confusion.

 

[ukrob]

If you do it at a station or by 'phone then I believe they can select a specific seat.

I'm not sure if the seats are part of the quota. I wouldn't have thought so, but someone once told me they were.

If this is TPE then there may even be no reservations put out anyway, and even if there are, there will be plenty of unreserved seats, so if it's not a peak service you should have no problems sitting elsewhere. Providing the reservation label has no further reservations on it (e.g. say you were booked to Donny, someone else could in theory be booked on the same seat from Donny to Scunthorpe), then it's a good idea to remove it to avoid confusion.

Cheers for that. I didn't fancy going to the station on a layer of ice at 11pm just to ask so thought I would check here.

In my experience they do put labels out, and the particular service is very busy like I said (used it many times in the past), so if I don't have a reservation next to the person I'm travelling with I can hardly ask someone else to struggle to find another seat just so I can sit there.

 

[rail-britain]

What TOC is it?
Several TOCs have assisted me in the past to book a seat reservation via email (already holding non-advance ticket)
However, if you are purchasing an advance ticket and want a specific seat then you can only do this at a station or by phone

 

[mathmo]

On a similar note, I booked an Advance ticket recently and didn't realise I was booked in the quiet coach, where I'd prefer not to be. Can a booking office change this if I take the ticket with me? (The ticket was bought online from EC.)

 

[ukrob]

As a bonus I have just found a seating diagram of a TPE Class 170 so I know exactly which seats are nearby too. If anyone else needs it (or the Class 185 one) it is in the TPE disabled access leaflet.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

On a similar note, I booked an Advance ticket recently and didn't realise I was booked in the quiet coach, where I'd prefer not to be. Can a booking office change this if I take the ticket with me? (The ticket was bought online from EC.)

Most guards would probably be okay with you just being on the right train and not so worried about exactly which seat you are in (provided there isn't an arguement with another passenger). I'd just ask the Guard if it's alright to change seats.

As far as I am aware, there is no way for a clerk to change the seat reservation without changing the ticket, they can't just give you a new reservation coupon, this could mean charging you a fee, even though you are not actually changing your travel plans.

In regard to booking specific seats, unless there is a seating plan available to the clerk (the FRPP doesn't have many) the seat booking may be hit and miss, for example, coach D seat 44 is on the opposite side of a pendolino to coach D seat 45 and facing the opposite way, but the clerk may not be aware of that being the case.

 

[GodAtum]

When I went to Euston to book my tickets the clerk was very helpful and had a seating plan in front of them.

As a bonus I have just found a seating diagram of a TPE Class 170 so I know exactly which seats are nearby too. If anyone else needs it (or the Class 185 one) it is in the TPE disabled access leaflet.

Do you have a link?

 

[ukrob]

Do you have a link?

Yep - PDF: http://tpexpress.co.uk/MediaLibrary/About FTPE/DPPP_Dec09.pdf

 

[142094]

On a similar vein, why is it when you reserve a seat on some services (eg East Coast), most times you don't get the one you asked for (they say there are none available), yet when you get on the train there are plenty of seats free? For example I usually ask for a forward facing windown seat not at a table, but sometimes I'm put facning backwards in the aisle, yet when I walk down the train there are still unreserved seats facing forward and at the window?