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Crosscountry First Class - seat reservation policies

LarryRailer

Member
Joined
2 Jan 2020
Messages
7
Location
UK
Looking forward to doing the Aberdeen-Penzance trip next week, before it gets abolished.

Nabbed a decent Advance 1st Class fare (£187.25 with railcard), but my preferred ‘solo seat’ A12 was not available. Two questions, for experts on here:

a. My next best seat A4 seems never to be reservable. I suspect it is blocked on the advance reservation system, but when you get on board it displays as “Available” for the entire journey. Can anyone confirm?

b. If this happens when I begin my marathon journey, can I sit there throughout, or can a ticket inspector force to go back to the seat number on my mandatory reservation (in this case A20, one of the doublet table seats)?

I was on a different CC train recently, expected to become very full later in the journey, and there were several announcements telling ticket holders to occupy the specific seat shown on their reservation, if they had one. I sat tight in my (preferred) unreserved seat. When the ticket inspector came round and examined my ticket, he wasn’t happy, but reluctantly allowed me to stay put “at my own risk”. What are the actual rules - can I be forced to move out of an “unreserved” seat or not?
 
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Mainline421

Member
Joined
7 May 2013
Messages
674
Location
Aberystwyth
De jure if you are traveling on an Advance ticket you must occupy only the seat shown on your ticket, if you are on any other type of ticket then you can use any seat. However there is virtually zero chance of this ever being enforced.
 

voyagerdude220

Established Member
Joined
13 Oct 2005
Messages
3,504
Looking on Journey Planner, it does let me reserve coach A seat 4 if I specifically request it.
I know when Avanti used to run 221s, they had specific seats which were never reservable. I don't know if Cross Country is the same.
 

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