GWR sleeper booking

[Highlandspring]

I’m having trouble booking the Great Western sleeper online through the GWR website.

I’m trying to book a single cabin from Penzance to Paddington for Thu 21st June - the GWR website lets me get all the way through selecting the date and the ticket type without any issue but it won’t let me continue beyond the “extras” tab where you select a reservation, enter your details and have the option to buy a London travelcard. A note at the top of the page says that I’ve selected a sleeper service and the reservation box is already On clicking continue popup appears saying “Please make a reservation for the outward journey” but as it’s a sleeper cabin I’m booking the reservations box is selected by default anyway and can’t be deselected (as per the attached screenshot). I’ve tried this on my ipad (in Firefox and Safari), on a laptop in Firefox, on a desktop in Internet Explorer and all come up against the same trouble. I’ve tried booking other dates as an experiment and exactly the same problem occurs. I phoned GWR yesterday who tried to book it for me but said that their system wasn’t letting them do it either and suggested that the sleeper may not be running that night, although they didn’t knw for sure, there is nothing mentioned on National Rail future engineering works and the schedule is not showing as cancelled in TRUST.

Any ideas how I can proceed with this? Is anyone else getting the same issue? I don’t mind going to a booking office if I have to but I’m a very long way away from Great Western land...

 

[Wallsendmag]

There may be a problem with the ticket type, we've seen an anomaly in a ticket issued at York.

 

[jellybaby]

Is anyone else getting the same issue?

Yup, it's not just you.

Have you tried calling GWR customer services?

 

[Highlandspring]

Yes, I called them and they were also unable to book a cabin. The operator suggested that this might mean the service isn't operating on that day though he couldnt confirm that either way and told me there was nothing more he could do, which wasn't really very helpful. I've spent a bit longer on the GWR website this afternoon and it won't let me book any sleeper cabin for any date or any fare at all.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

The national rail timetable for the 20th of May and beyond is not confirmed yet. During the duration of that timetabling period (running until December), timetables may only be confirmed at "T-4", i.e. 4 weeks beforehand, rather than the more usual "T-12". Hence no-one can yet be sure if or when a particular service will be running, and so few if any Advance tickets, sleeper reservations etc. are being sold for these dates.

 

[jellybaby]

The national rail timetable for the 20th of May and beyond is not confirmed yet. During the duration of that timetabling period (running until December), timetables may only be confirmed at "T-4", i.e. 4 weeks beforehand, rather than the more usual "T-12". Hence no-one can yet be sure if or when a particular service will be running, and so few if any Advance tickets, sleeper reservations etc. are being sold for these dates.

Only the GWR website is selling advance tickets for some services on some days, including the sleeper, as far ahead as 2 September. I've got a trip planned for dates where they aren't selling tickets yet so I check frequently since I want the cheap seats when they are available. Annoyingly if the sleeper doesn't run on the Thursday night I'll get the day train on Friday, tickets for which are available and the cheap ones may have run out by the time I find out what I can get on the Thursday night.

Meanwhile the website is broken enough that it can't sell a sleeper reservation for next Tuesday as Highlandspring has found. Or we are both doing something wrong.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

Only the GWR website is selling advance tickets for some services on some days, including the sleeper, as far ahead as 2 September. I've got a trip planned for dates where they aren't selling tickets yet so I check frequently since I want the cheap seats when they are available. Annoyingly if the sleeper doesn't run on the Thursday night I'll get the day train on Friday, tickets for which are available and the cheap ones may have run out by the time I find out what I can get on the Thursday night.

Meanwhile the website is broken enough that it can't sell a sleeper reservation for next Tuesday as Highlandspring has found. Or we are both doing something wrong.

That could then more plausibly be a website issue.

 

[Sleepy]

Use the mixing desk when booking sleeper http://tickets.gwr.com/gw/en/JourneyPlanning/MixingDeck
Did a dummy booking for op date which reserved quite happily - £64 for Solo cabin such a bargain !! (Site books up to 6th July) Any ticket office with reservations capability can do Sleeper bookings.

 

[jellybaby]

Use the mixing desk when booking sleeper http://tickets.gwr.com/gw/en/JourneyPlanning/MixingDeck
Did a dummy booking for op date which reserved quite happily - £64 for Solo cabin such a bargain !! (Site books up to 6th July)

Cunning, useful to know. I couldn't get the cheap fares until I selected 'All fares and services' in the search though, with 'Cheapest First Great Western fares and services only' it insisted on offering more expensive fares.

Any ticket office with reservations capability can do Sleeper bookings.

My local station didn't have a clue when I made some enquiries a few weeks ago.

 

[Highlandspring]

Use the mixing desk when booking sleeper http://tickets.gwr.com/gw/en/JourneyPlanning/MixingDeck
Did a dummy booking for op date which reserved quite happily - £64 for Solo cabin such a bargain !! (Site books up to 6th July) Any ticket office with reservations capability can do Sleeper bookings.

Amazing, thank you! I’ve just booked my ticket without any issues whatsoever. I’m very grateful for your help, thanks once again.

 

[Jan]

It seems like this is still a problem. Originally I tried to get a berth supplement to go together with an Interrail pass, but when I tried booking by phone, GWR claimed they couldn't take a non-UK credit card.

Since it turned out that apparently during the summer season supplements are once again £10 more than what is currently quoted on the website, an advance ticket would actually be slightly cheaper, so I tried booking that instead. Through the normal booking flow I ran into the selfsame problem as Highlandspring, but through the "mixing desk" everything was fine and my credit card didn't cause any problems, either. So thanks very much for that tip!

 

[jellybaby]

It looks like the sleeper might not be running from London on July 12th (it has disappeared from many booking engines including the GWR one) but reservations aren't for day trains on the 12th yet either. Is there a way to get confirmation if the sleeper will run that night or not?