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Virgin Trains seat selection

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Essexman

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I don't usually book with Virgin but did so tonight so I could choose a seat.
I booked a first advance London - Barrow and Virgin gave me a restricted view seat on the train to Lancaster. It only gave about 5 options to change, all of which were restricted view or facing back. Two other first class coaches had plenty of spare seats but weren't available for reservations.
Do they only allocate specific seats to advance ticket holders?
If I don't pick them it for a while (travel on 26th Sept) can I change the seat online later?
 
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Bletchleyite

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No, all available seats except unreservable ones are available for selection. There are, if I recall correctly, 2 reservable and 2 unreservable coaches on 11 car Pendolinos - G and K unreservable, H and J reservable. So most of the seats have already been reserved.

No, you can't change the seat after payment. You could however just sit in a different unreserved seat on the day of travel - VT don't enforce the "must sit in booked seat" aspect of the Advance T&Cs.
 
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philjo

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When booking on VT the seat selector allows you to click on the specific seat number you want (it shows which ones are still free in each coach). from your description it sounds like you just got the preferences selections rather than the actual seat selector.
 

Bletchleyite

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When booking on VT the seat selector allows you to click on the specific seat number you want (it shows which ones are still free in each coach). from your description it sounds like you just got the preferences selections rather than the actual seat selector.

Sounds like the seat selector to me.

Is it a "via Brum" service? These have very attractive Advance fares particularly in 1st, so the seats are probably genuinely all reserved apart from the two totally unreservable coaches. The services aren't attractive to Anytime fare payers as they are slower than the Trent Valley ones so most people in 1st are on Advances.
 
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Essexman

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It is via Birmingham but no cheaper than the direct ones - and the ones I'm looking at for returning are actually more expensive via Birmingham.
 

Trackman

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VTEC you can change seats at no extra cost online, VTWC use a different booking system, when amending a journey it does pop up with a phone number - ring that, I don't think they re-issue the reservation but change the seats at no extra cost.
For me, just go in the unreserved coach a find yourself a seat, that's what I do.
 
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