Problems booking Leeds-Scarborough tickets and selecting seats

[cuccir]

I know for a fact you didn't used to be able to choose your seat on EC, because we did the same journey in 2010

It is a fairly recent feature on EC, think it was brought in alongside the timetable changes last year.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

I did in fact end up buying the tickets using TPs telesales department. But surely that just begs the question if they can do it there, why not Online ? Do they use completely different systems ? Surely the systems must be integrated with each other at the very least ?....

As I understand it, the reservation information is held on a database and the various booking engines, ticket machines and so on, access that database. AFAIK there are three different online booking engines and four types of ticket issuing machines, I'm not sure what telesales use though.

 

[Justin Smith]

And East Coast.

When you say you can book the exact seat you want on EC trains, how do you do that ? ! ?
I went on as a test and it gives you the normal options of airline / table / forward / backward etc etc, but I couldn't see where it allowed you to pick the exact seat on the train like Eurostar and Renfe do. On their websites you click through and get a seat layout of the coach with available seats bookable and unavailable ones greyed out. We're on that train 5 hours and we want the opposed twin seats in First class, if we have to share a table of 4 we'd just as soon book 2 standard class airline seats in the Quiet coach, and save a load of money into the bargain !
Am I doing something wrong ?

 

[ainsworth74]

You need to go through the select your seat preferences stage (I just leave them all 'no preference') to the delivery details section then under order summary you should see the journey you've just put into the basket and there should be the button 'view your seat' and clicking on that will take you to the seating plan and allow you to edit your seat choice. Or if you prefer (perhaps if you're buying several journeys at the same time) you can wait to make the alterations at the order review stage. See attachment.

 

[Justin Smith]

You need to go through the select your seat preferences stage (I just leave them all 'no preference') to the delivery details section then under order summary you should see the journey you've just put into the basket and there should be the button 'view your seat' and clicking on that will take you to the seating plan and allow you to edit your seat choice. Or if you prefer (perhaps if you're buying several journeys at the same time) you can wait to make the alterations at the order review stage. See attachment.

Thanks very much !

 

[Justin Smith]

You need to go through the select your seat preferences stage (I just leave them all 'no preference') to the delivery details section then under order summary you should see the journey you've just put into the basket and there should be the button 'view your seat' and clicking on that will take you to the seating plan and allow you to edit your seat choice. Or if you prefer (perhaps if you're buying several journeys at the same time) you can wait to make the alterations at the order review stage. See attachment.

Thanks for that, I`ve just used that advice to get the seats we want !