Indeed, if only the DfT were competent, since they care about this then they should simply tell LNER and Avanti to stop actively lying to their customers
Good!!! Shame Avanti try to tell everyone to go away once all their reservable seats are booked, making no allowance for the unreseravable seats, as LNER do.
At least in the case of LNER there's an allowance for people who book seats but don't show, and for the unreseravable seats, this is in the form of counted place reservations. On Avanti West Coast there isn't.
Utter rubbish by FG Avanti. The DfT who take the cash from tickets should be looking at why FirstGroup are only making available 25% of the seats (as stated in the post) for Advance sales, a figure I agree is accurate - it leaves 1st Class mostly empty with revenue lost or business going elsewhere.
While LNER's bodge there might be better in some ways, it does cause some other fun as I recall, and I'm loathed to give credit for doing a bad thing slightly less badly when other operators like GWR can just not do the bad thing at all
I think I can agree with the principle you're getting at here yes.
Revenue goes to the Treasury, not DfT. The latter are responsible for costs, and get told to control them by the Treasury, and thus pass that on the the TOCs. The whole system fails to incentivise the TOCs to actively increase revenue.
Indeed. Although again that's only really an issue because of insufficient administrative planning resources at operators at Network Rail.
It's nothing to do with Network Rail. It's about how the reservation systems work.
I think the other issue is that even if you buy a walkup from a website, I don't know of any site that won't collect an email, and almost all by now should correctly notify of service changes from sourced the national system. And you can buy a walkup from a (non-journey planner) TVM without supplying contact details, unaffected by this. So all that this really does successfully is block people buying tickets at a journey planner TVM with no way to contact them about changes.
That’s very true I hear TM’s saying to passengers it’s actually cheaper to get on board and pay for standard premium rather then use seatfrog as it can cost more
No. It's only an issue because the timetable cannot be confirmed in time. None of this was ever an issue before 2018, because the plan was usually confirmed in time for reservation to open in time, except for journeys for more than twelve weeks in the future.
The TOC sites I use never send me emails about changes, except LNER. If you book otherwise than online you'll never get a notification (except for Sleeper reservations perhaps). Was different with extended period bookings, you'd always get an email.
Absolutely.
Oscar is correct that it's an accreditation requirement if you do journey planning.
It's not just that Avanti have sold out all of their reservable seats; they are actively blocking first-class sales on some trains and have been for some time. I have seen many direct trains from Manchester or Liverpool to Euston where first-class is available for the complete trip (and also to Milton Keynes Central) but blocked for shorter journeys. This is presumably to frustrate split-ticketing and to keep seats held back for those who may yet book at the ludicrous fares for the end-to-end journey. It does of course run counter to any public-service principle of the railways (in all seat classes) being for all and not just those going to/from the capital.
I'd add you would need to go to a non-avanti ticket office, as the avanti ticket offices can't or won't sell you tickets on their services that don't have reservations available
Poor, but I can't say I'm surprised. They've had long enough to make these changes (as I recall it's over 18 months since the first retailer went live on the system).
This is true, but I don't think the number of passengers booking a walk-up ticket at a non-journey planner TVM or ticket office so far in advance it's outside the confirmed timetable is large enough to warrant the trade off between them not getting a disruption email, and the issues fake compulsory reservations cause. Certainly see no reason for Avanti/LNER to think that's necessary given other TOCs seem fine as is
Yes that's exactly what I was saying. None of this was considered a problem prior to 2018 and it wouldn't be a problem now either if it weren't for the other messes that have been created since then in planning. Avanti and LNER's new approach is useful because it has other commercial effects, such as strongly implying (falsely) that travel isn't permitted other than to book Premium or First, when standard has all reservations exhausted, as it would be on an aircraft if all economy seat availability were exhausted.
That would be extremely concerning if true, as they are required to sell any walk up tickets requested.
I have been refused anytime tickets from them (Euston ticket office) on the grounds of their TIS being unable to issue it as the only service it would be valid on (the 5:30 am departure for Glasgow the next day as it was) had "sold out". I went to a different london terminal and bought it without problem, without reservations on the avanti leg. When I travelled on the 5:30 am service (which was running) there was only 1 other passenger from euston (presumably the fact that it was made really hard to buy tickets didn't help loadings, Not that I would have expected the 5:30 am service to be busy in any case)
I can't think of any logical reason why a Ticket Office colleague in this scenario should refuse to sell a ticket. The only reason I'd occasionally refuse is if I suspected the customer wanted to use the ticket on an invalid journey, which of course wouldn't be the case with an Anytime ticket.
It's no business of a ticket office clerk how a customer intends to use a ticket, and no offence can be committed solely by buying it. You should simply sell the requested ticket and advise the customer of any applicable restrictions. If you feel it's relevant you can mark the ticket 'restrictions advised'.
