Yes the 10 minute before travel seats on XC are electronic and also have 'may be reserved' or words to the affect on the screen.
James
Thanks, James.
I heard of this on another thread and thought they were joking!
Can anyone suggest why XC would introduce such a bonkers idea ? Or is it bonkers? Perhaps I'm missing something here. Under what circumstances would they flag a seat as "May be reserved?".
I just can't see what benefit there is to anyone in knowing that a seat "may" be reserved?
And what does it mean, anyway ? The word "May" means so many things.
(a) "It's possible this seat is reserved at this moment, for the current stretch of line, but I'm afraid we are too incompetent to know. If no-one is sitting in it, please hang around to see if they turn up. If they do, then clearly we forgot about them, sorry, tough luck! If not, either this was a false alarm or someone DID reserve it and we forgot, so please sit in it, and keep it with our blessing for the rest of your journey"
or
(b) "It's possible that this seat has been reserved for someone further down the line, but I'm afraid we are too incompetent to know if it has been, or if so where from. You can sit in it for now but if someone turns up later then clearly we did reserve it but were to incompetent to remember. I know it's a bit annoying to have to shift all your stuff, and if all the other seats are taken by then, then it's tough but you'll have to stand for the rest of your journey. If there ARE some other seats free by then, hey isn't that lucky. Of course it WILL be a bit if a pain if they all say "May be Reserved" and you have to go through all this again, but, well, that's your fault for paying top whack for a flexible ticket so you could change plans at the last minute."
or
(c) This seat is NOT Reserved at the moment, and we HAVEN'T reserved it for further down the line. So please feel free to sit in it. But I'm afraid we MAY reserve it at any moment. Of course, we know that isn't really reserving it, more like , well, you know, kind of just er Kicking you out of your seat. And I know it's a pain having to ........ (see b above).
I'm not a genius, and I'm sure XC employ cleverer people than me. So they must think this is a good idea. But I'm honestly stumped here. I just can't see what I'm missing???????