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LNER compulsory reservations - what happens if you don’t have one?

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Falcon1200

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I took the 0958 from Newcastle to Kimg’s Cross today. Last Wednesday LNER sent me an e-mail saying that due to a capacity change my reservation was cancelled and I should make a reservation on another train. But there was a problem - no trains were available to rebook until four in the afternoon, a six hour delay.

I would say you should be a little wary at busier times. Your reservation will have been cancelled because a 5-car train was substituted for a 9-car, and the reservations can't be transferred across. I expect that in the circumstances the 5-car train was not reserved at all.

But as OLJR says he was told to reserve on another train altogether !

The last minute short formation happened to me in March; Only when the set arrived in the platform did I discover that my reserved seat did not exist as the train was 5 vice 9. All reservations were indeed cancelled, fortunately the train did not become busy enough for this to be a problem.

This illustrates the absurdity of LNER’s mandatory reservations policy and utter contempt of customers. I wonder if they’d have paid delay repay if you’d done what they asked and ended up on the train six hours later.

Indeed; At a time when ridership and revenue has fallen through the floor the last thing any TOC should be doing is treating its customers so poorly. Hopefully the mandatory reservation policy (or rather diktat) will not be necessary much longer.
 
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DB

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Which is equally a problem today. I know regulars who wouldn't dream of travelling on anything other than your reserved train on a Maundy Thursday, for example.

The point is, that's their decision and others may choose differently - especially if only travelling one or two stops. LNER appears to want to take away that choice...
 

trebor79

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If you had a ticket which was valid to both the destination you'd given to get onto the platform, and one of the stations the LNER train was going (for example, a rover ticket), it could also be that you'd just changed your mind. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's been wandering round on a rover ticket and decided at the last minute to change plans.

LNER do seem to be going out of their way to drive passengers away. I avoid using them (and XC) because of the potential hassle, and so far I've not needed to go anywhere where one of those two is the only option. Northern, Transpennine and EMR seem fine and pretty much back to normal - apart from the irritating annoucements, they are largely treating people like adults and letting them decide whether they want to get on a busy train and where to sit.
I wouldn't worry about XC, from what I've seen the guard stays firmly in the rear cab and they aren't even doing revenue checks, let alone fussing over seat reservations.
Virtually every LNER train to / from kings cross on Thursday, Friday and Sunday is sold out / fully reserved. At less than 50% of capacity of course. People are just going to drive.
Yep.
65% of Normal capacity I believe
Which is just silly. Why are LNER restricting to 65% of seated capacity when, for example, GA are perfectly happy for Liverpool Street - Norwich trains to have every seat occupied + standing passengers?
It's either "safe" from a COVID POV or it isn't. Or does an LNER livery on the outside of the train make it riskier?
As the TOC's are all on management contract now, why doesn't the DfT, who is footing the revenue loss as well as the usual subsidies, not putting it's foot down and getting TOCs to work to a common standard? Why are they all just allowed to make up their own rules, or not? It's really confusing and irritating for those of us who just want to be able to make a journey when we need to make it with all these different rules and cobbled together systems.
 

DB

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As the TOC's are all on management contract now, why doesn't the DfT, who is footing the revenue loss as well as the usual subsidies, not putting it's foot down and getting TOCs to work to a common standard? Why are they all just allowed to make up their own rules, or not? It's really confusing and irritating for those of us who just want to be able to make a journey when we need to make it with all these different rules and cobbled together systems.

And LNER (along with Northern) is controlled directly by a DfT subsidiary, so those would be the easiest to enforce standards on. The fact that LNER is allowed to do this suggests the DfT is keen on it, which is really not good.
 

35B

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And LNER (along with Northern) is controlled directly by a DfT subsidiary, so those would be the easiest to enforce standards on. The fact that LNER is allowed to do this suggests the DfT is keen on it, which is really not good.
The operator of last resort arrangements are the least controlled by DfT, so I’d draw no conclusions about DfT’s attitude here.

If travel does recover, then this will simply not work in peak periods.
 

island

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LNER are the dishonest ones for going against the principle of open returns, when these can still be sold. I won't use this nasty company again if I can.
Hasn’t LNER withdrawn return tickets from sale on its routes?
 

DB

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Because that’s what the DfT have instructed LNER to do.

So why just LNER? Northern and TPE don't have any capacity restrictions now. Don't think EMR does either.

And so far as I'm aware the 65% relies on groups of up to 4 travelling together, so in practice will always be lower - and it's only seated passengers, whereas normally there would be quite few standing on some trains.
 

Andrew1395

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My experience on Friday (admittedly after points failure at York). LNER staff at station said get any train. First to pull in was rammed. my train was fine, no seat reservations displayed, but everyone seemed to get to their reservation without fuss. Just as well as most were not wearing the mandatory face mask, and we had no onboard ticket checks. In fact only had ticket checked at Euston LNR barriers as they were wide open at Kings Cross.

It is however very easy to change your reservation online - i bought my supersaver from LNER, and once you have created your account its easy to go in and rebook. The ability to change reservations seamlessly online, i did change my return on the day before, makes the tickets pretty flexible for those making planned longer distance trips.
 

Hadders

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It is however very easy to change your reservation online
It is easy but only if there are seats available - and this is the problem. At the moment you have the choice to get on board and take a seat if someone hasn't turned up, or stand to start with and see if a seat becomes available later in the journey or in extreme cases stand all the way. This flexibility disappears with compulsory reservations.

Many say that people want comfortable journeys which is fine but the most uncomfortable journeys are those following disruption and it seems that when disruption happens compulsory reservations aren't enforced, people are just told to get on the train, so the argument about having a comfortable journey all falls down.
 

trainophile

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A few weeks ago I had an anytime return Dundee to Arbroath, and on my outbound I realised that my intended return was an LNER not Scotrail, so I managed to find a phone number to ring to request a reservation. I was told "yes we can do that for you" and given a carriage and seat number. On boarding, I found my allocated seat was immediately behind a table of four blokes, and there was only about three people in the rest of the coach. As my seat also had a restricted view I moved. Needless to say nobody came through checking tickets, seats or anything else.

Surely at the time you buy your ticket you form a contract with the seller/train operator(s), and to later tell you you cannot be accommodated due to their petty rules or shortened trains is very out of order.

I would love the person (was it Trainfan?) who had a Twitter reply from XC saying it's not a hard and fast rule to copy it on here, as I will be in that situation in a couple of weeks with a Devon & Cornwall Rover and unable to get a reservation for the train I want to use.
 

BluePenguin

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Where are you going? Hexham. Hexham isn't York so you've lied to get onto the platform.
No that is not correct. If you have a valid ticket which the barrier accepts then you are getting onto the platform honestly. Lying to someone about where you’re going is not the same thing. Do you think it is honest for your company to pretend that a train is “sold out”, preventing people from making a journey they might have a genuine reason for making under the guise services are full? I would hope not. Not letting people board when there is plenty of seats is ridiculous. LNER apologists do not seem to understand how frustrating the situation is for us passengers. If a restaurant has no reservations then you can find another one. If a train has no reservations you are likely to be stuffed unless you can re-arrange your plans or take a coach.

With respect, a lot of us are highly inconvenienced by this practice, myself included. Trains are carting around empty seats and the railway is losing money. Social distancing aside if people are willing to pay for a walk up ticket and are comfortable with the number of people in the carriage with them, why not just let them travel? It is only people in the know who are doing this anyway. Everyone else either abandons their trip or travels when a reservation is available.

Travel with confidence? More like travel with crippling anxiety that you might not get on. Nobody will return to the railway if this continues.
 
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Haywain

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If a restaurant has no reservations then you can find another one.
That assumes you are somewhere with a large number of restaurants but it doesn’t hold if you are somewhere with a limited number - which is more akin to train services.
 

trainophile

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No that is not correct. If you have a valid ticket which the barrier accepts then you are getting onto the platform honestly. Lying to someone about where you’re going is not the same thing. Do you think it is honest for your company to pretend that a train is “sold out”, preventing people from making a journey they might have a genuine reason for making under the guise services are full? I would hope not. Not letting people board when there is plenty of seats is ridiculous. LNER apologists do not seem to understand how frustrating the situation is for us passengers. If a restaurant has no reservations then you can find another one. If a train has no reservations you are likely to be stuffed unless you can re-arrange your plans or take a coach.

With respect, a lot of us are highly inconvenienced by this practice, myself included. Trains are carting around empty seats and the railway is losing money. Social distancing aside if people are willing to pay for a walk up ticket and are comfortable with the number of people in the carriage with them, why not just let them travel? It is only people in the know who are doing this anyway. Everyone else either abandons their trip or travels when a reservation is available.

Travel with confidence? More like travel with crippling anxiety that you might not get on. Nobody will return to the railway if this continues.

Hear hear. Some of us have no choice if we don't drive and don't have national coach connections locally. Mind you having travelled quite a lot in the last seven days I wouldn't say there's much risk of the railways being abandoned, if anything they are getting busier by the day.
 

Haywain

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On boarding, I found my allocated seat was immediately behind a table of four blokes,
So, on the one you complain about compulsory reservations and on the other you complain about being too close to other people? What’s the ideal situation?
 

Andrew1395

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It is easy but only if there are seats available - and this is the problem. At the moment you have the choice to get on board and take a seat if someone hasn't turned up, or stand to start with and see if a seat becomes available later in the journey or in extreme cases stand all the way. This flexibility disappears with compulsory reservations.

Many say that people want comfortable journeys which is fine but the most uncomfortable journeys are those following disruption and it seems that when disruption happens compulsory reservations aren't enforced, people are just told to get on the train, so the argument about having a comfortable journey all falls down.
I can see that, but once your open ticket costs more than £50, it is less likely to be an impulse buy, and mine was a planned journey too. like many discretionary purchases where a capacity limit applies, (restaurants, cinemas, sporting events, etc) it is not burdensome.

My experience is that no one is checking on board and there is enough space to allow people to find a seat. Maybe that’s out of step with others. But as you say no one is bothered to control seats or social distancing during disruption.

in my particular case I was more irritated by my window seat being 80% body panel and no view. And an uncomfortable seat. So with that and the 60 minute delay, and ambience below that of the average car, and £80 price with quite restrictive time on the ticket are factors more likely to impact future purchases than compulsory seat reservations.

Needing to do a relatively short in time and distance journey, like York to Doncaster it is obviously more an irritant. How much it will lead to abandoned journeys, will be interesting to see.
 

DB

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Hear hear. Some of us have no choice if we don't drive and don't have national coach connections locally. Mind you having travelled quite a lot in the last seven days I wouldn't say there's much risk of the railways being abandoned, if anything they are getting busier by the day.

Most of the train operators seem to be behaving sensibly, unlike LNER. Certainly, the Northern / TPE commuter trains around West Yorks have been getting steadily busier for months and although not wedged like in the past some are reasonably full (real full, not LNER pretend 'full').
 

HamworthyGoods

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This is nothing new - BR used to have Reservation Essential as denoted in the timetable and enforced strict boarding controls.
 

Hadders

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I can see that, but once your open ticket costs more than £50, it is less likely to be an impulse buy, and mine was a planned journey too. like many discretionary purchases where a capacity limit applies, (restaurants, cinemas, sporting events, etc) it is not burdensome.

My experience is that no one is checking on board and there is enough space to allow people to find a seat. Maybe that’s out of step with others. But as you say no one is bothered to control seats or social distancing during disruption.

in my particular case I was more irritated by my window seat being 80% body panel and no view. And an uncomfortable seat. So with that and the 60 minute delay, and ambience below that of the average car, and £80 price with quite restrictive time on the ticket are factors more likely to impact future purchases than compulsory seat reservations.

Needing to do a relatively short in time and distance journey, like York to Doncaster it is obviously more an irritant. How much it will lead to abandoned journeys, will be interesting to see.
But what would you do if you were away for the weekend, disruption strikes while you're away and you need to rebook. You go onto the simple system to change your reservation only to find the next train with available space is in two days time?
 

35B

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But what would you do if you were away for the weekend, disruption strikes while you're away and you need to rebook. You go onto the simple system to change your reservation only to find the next train with available space is in two days time?
The same as you would with an airline.

And that's where the compulsory reservation model on UK inter city breaks down. Few of the journeys are long enough to justify flying, and the customers'* expectation is of a turn up and go railway, where the price of exceeding capacity is having to stand.

* - it's an old line, but to be noted - "the customer is always right". Businesses tend to thrive when they work to meet customers' expectations, not tell the customer they're wrong.
 

Bletchleyite

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* - it's an old line, but to be noted - "the customer is always right". Businesses tend to thrive when they work to meet customers' expectations, not tell the customer they're wrong.

And the customer's expectations doesn't involve being crammed into a sardine tin, whether they might have a reserved seat they can't reach due to the crowds or not.
 

Haywain

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And the customer's expectations doesn't involve being crammed into a sardine tin, whether they might have a reserved seat they can't reach due to the crowds or not.
No, it’s at that point that they (usually the last to board) complain the train was dangerously overcrowded and wonder (out loud) why it was allowed to happen!
 

Shotton

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Why not make compulsory reservations first class exclusive - if you want an absolute guarentee of no crowding and a specific reserved seat, you can buy a first class ticket. As it seems to me like compulsory reservations and the guarentee of your carriage being filled only to a certain level is a "premium" product.

If you don't want to pay the first class fare, then simply choose to travel at a time which is generally less busy to avoid crowding, or accept there is a chance that you may be travelling at a time where the train is packed full.
 
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