Can you choose seat reservations from a seating plan with DB?

[AdamWW]

In the past I've been able to choose seat reservations from a seating plan on the DB journey planner instead of just letting it pick one for me.

When I try to make a seat reservation now I can't find an option to choose for myself. Does anyone know if I'm missing something, or if the option has been taken away?

 

[DanielB]

I've used the option just a month ago, so it should still be there. What I did notice however is that it's quite late in the process: you first select a connection, then get a proposal and only after that the seat can be changed on a seating plan.

Alternatively you could try reserving via the ÖBB website. There a reservation will cost only 3 euro regardless of class. At DB it's € 4,50 (2nd) or € 5,90 (1st), although that's for all trains in the booking and not each train seperately.

 

[AdamWW]

I've used the option just a month ago, so it should still be there. What I did notice however is that it's quite late in the process: you first select a connection, then get a proposal and only after that the seat can be changed on a seating plan.

Alternatively you could try reserving via the ÖBB website. There a reservation will cost only 3 euro regardless of class. At DB it's € 4,50 (2nd) or € 5,90 (1st), although that's for all trains in the booking and not each train seperately.

Possibly I'm being stupid but I can't see it anywhere up to the point where it wants credit card details. And of course I can't remember what it was that I clicked on when I have used it before (was quite a few years).

Thanks for the tip about the OBB website though.

 

[DanielB]

Option is still there, just tried it out: in the journey planner enter your trip and click "Nur sitzplatz (kein ticket)". Then you'll get a number of options and you click "Zur reservierung" behind the desired one. In the next screen you enter your name and click "Weiter als Gast" (or login to your account).
The next screen will give a number of options, just click "Weiter" to get to the next screen where you'll see the option "Wunschplatz reservieren" with a link "sitzplatz auswahlen". That link will lead you to the seating plan to select your seat.

 

[AdamWW]

Option is still there, just tried it out: in the journey planner enter your trip and click "Nur sitzplatz (kein ticket)". Then you'll get a number of options and you click "Zur reservierung" behind the desired one. In the next screen you enter your name and click "Weiter als Gast" (or login to your account).
The next screen will give a number of options, just click "Weiter" to get to the next screen where you'll see the option "Wunschplatz reservieren" with a link "sitzplatz auswahlen". That link will lead you to the seating plan to select your seat.

So it is. Also in the English version.

I think I missed it before because it comes later than I'd expect, but even after you told me that, I still missed it. Somehow.

Thanks for holiding my hand on this...I'm not normally this incapable of using a web site...

 

[Bletchleyite]

To be fair there are good reasons why the seat selectors are generally quite well hidden - it makes poor use of seats. If you take the default allocation a decent system would allocate shorter journey reservations to the same seat so as to allow longer ones in other seats. So rather than making it too prominent for people who don't care, it is made a bit inconvenient so only those who really, really care will do it.

Doesn't apply to planes where everyone is making the exact same journey.

 

[AdamWW]

To be fair there are good reasons why the seat selectors are generally quite well hidden - it makes poor use of seats. If you take the default allocation a decent system would allocate shorter journey reservations to the same seat so as to allow longer ones in other seats. So rather than making it too prominent for people who don't care, it is made a bit inconvenient so only those who really, really care will do it.

Interesting thought that they might have deliberately put the link somewhere non obvious - I didn't think of that.

Well it almost worked on me.

Eurostar go one step further with their system where you get allocated a seat with the booking but can then go back into the booking and change it to a seat of your choice.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Less of a need for Eurostar to do it because its usage is more like a plane, i.e. you will never really get two reservations to put in one seat in that way (I think never now they've removed intra Schengen travel?)