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How to find out when reservations open?

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Trying to make reservations for 27/12, I have been trying to work out how to tell when flexible-ticket reservations will open for a particular date.

Websites suggest "12 weeks ahead", but today I have been told that neither TPX or EMT can reserve for 27 December, 83 days ahead. The National Rail journey planner includes 27/12 as the furthest-ahead date it will cover, which I thought might be a pointer to reservation horizons, but clearly not.

The picture I got from the agent at EMT Customer Service was of different TOCs opening reservations on different dates, with no central website to show the status of individual dates, and not all TOCs even offering such information on their own sites.

Is there really no way, short of making phone calls to Customer Service lines every day, to find out when reservations open for a particular travel date?
 
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les.

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Trying to make reservations for 27/12, I have been trying to work out how to tell when flexible-ticket reservations will open for a particular date.

Websites suggest "12 weeks ahead", but today I have been told that neither TPX or EMT can reserve for 27 December, 83 days ahead. The National Rail journey planner includes 27/12 as the furthest-ahead date it will cover, which I thought might be a pointer to reservation horizons, but clearly not.

The picture I got from the agent at EMT Customer Service was of different TOCs opening reservations on different dates, with no central website to show the status of individual dates, and not all TOCs even offering such information on their own sites.

Is there really no way, short of making phone calls to Customer Service lines every day, to find out when reservations open for a particular travel date?

Most sites let you set up an email alert and you are sent an email the day that the tickets go on sale.
 
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But is the day that Advance tickets go on sale always the same day that reservations open for flexible tickets?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


Current page (on 5 October) says: "Advance ticket & reservation information last updated 30 September 2016". How does one tell whether that means that the horizons are unchanged since 30 September, or simply that NR hasn't bothered reporting subsequent changes?
 
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Romilly

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But is the day that Advance tickets go on sale always the same day that reservations open for flexible tickets?
Yes in my experience.

On your other question, most train companies seem to do one release per week, so there will be times when you can only book 78 days ahead. Also, although tickets for working Mondays to Fridays are generally released on time, releases for weekend/bank holiday (and occasionally weekday late evening) travel are sometimes delayed if e.g. there is a delay in firming up details of proposed engineering work.

As regards the list, it is quite possible that there have been no releases since last Friday (30 September).
 
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The National Rail page on booking horizons is clearly NOT kept up to date. As of now (6 Oct) it is still showing the position as of 30 Sep, which says reservations available only until 23 Dec. Yet I have just booked a TPX Advance (through the TPX site) for 30 Dec.

And Trainline is offering EMT advance tickets for 30 Dec - but EMT aren't!

What a mess.
 
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