Seat reservations and break of journey

[arb]

I wish to purchase a flexible off-peak return for a long distance journey, and break my journey on the return leg. Is it possible to get seat reservations that take into account the break of journey, specifically for the second part of the journey after the break?

When booking online, I could work backwards from the train I intend to catch after the break of journey, calculate what time the full journey, without a break, would have left the origin station, and select that train when booking. But that's going to give a seat reservation all the way from the origin that I would only start using half-way through the reserved period, which will increase the chance of somebody else thinking I haven't turned up, and taking my seat.

Would a booking office do what I want? And would they do it if I'd purchased the tickets online (in order to utilise some online vouchers) and then took the pre-bought tickets into them? Or would I have to buy from ticket office and make the "partial" seat reservation at the same time?

 

[Merseysider]

Any competent booking office will be able to make these reservations for you.

I'd suggest avoiding Merseyrail and Sheffield ticket offices.

It won't matter whether you have bought the ticket already, or are buying it at the same time as making your seat reservations.

 

[yorkie]

How long is the break of journey?

If the additional time (on top of any minimum connection times) is no greater than 99 minutes, Trainsplit.com or Trainscanbecheaper.info will give you an itinerary including an extended wait at the station, and you can tick the box to request reservations.

Providing the ticket type allows break of journey you could use that additional waiting time to go where you want.

For anything greater than that, you would need to either ask at a competent helpful booking office (e.g. York would be great with something like that) or go through telesales.

I am fortunate i that I have access to a good ticket office, though I don't often need to use it as we have some helpful forum members who work in booking offices

 

[arb]

Thanks for the advice. The break of journey will be for several days, not a couple of hours, so the "extended wait" option in a journey planner won't work this time around. But it's a useful trick to remember for the future.

The journey in question is still over a month away, so I won't be immediately asking my local station (Cambridge or Ely) to do this, but I'll try and remember to report back here when I get round to finalising this trip.

 

[arb]

Just to confirm, I had no issue at all getting the "partial" seat reservation from Cambridge ticket office, with pre-bought tickets.