CrossCountry double booked seats

[Morpethcurve]

Having read that XC does this, what is my best argument next Monday if I find my reserved 1st class seats Tiverton - Plymouth - Tiverton are occupied by someone else with a "valid" claim?

 

[GWVillager]

Having read that XC does this, what is my best argument next Monday if I find my reserved 1st class seats Tiverton - Plymouth - Tiverton are occupied by someone else with a "valid" claim?

I highly doubt that you should have any problems in 1st, even if XC do indeed double book, it's not typically that full. Even if your seats are taken (which they won't be), there will be others.

 

[skyhigh]

Having read that XC does this

Does what? Book two people in one seat?

I would be very surprised if that was true or a policy.

 

[StoneRoad]

Find the guard aka train manager and let them sort it out ...

no idea what criteria would be used, though !

 

[Merseysider]

Speak to the Train Manager who'll find you another seat.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Does what? Book two people in one seat?

I would be very surprised if that was true or a policy.

No TOC deliberately does it. Rail doesn't "overbook" in the way airlines do because capacity isn't limited in the same way - "overbooking" is just the sale of walk up fares without reservation.

It does occasionally happen if a train is cancelled then reinstated. I believe it was happening a fair bit on Avanti during their bad period for exactly this reason.

 

[Morpethcurve]

That's encouraging. I seem to recall reading of cases where someone with a reserved seat A to D finds someone else gets on at B with a ticket for the same seat, to C. I seem to recall ongoing debate about it.
There might be more people than usual that day, being the last day of HST service, but we'll see.
Guess I got the wrong end of the stick, and thanks for the replies.

 

[StarCrossing]

That's encouraging. I seem to recall reading of cases where someone with a reserved seat A to D finds someone else gets on at B with a ticket for the same seat, to C. I seem to recall ongoing debate about it.
There might be more people than usual that day, being the last day of HST service, but we'll see.
Guess I got the wrong end of the stick, and thanks for the replies.

I travel on XC all the time and have never witnessed this. Every time I've seen two people who thought they had reserved the same seat, one of them always has the wrong seat/carriage/time/service/date.

 

[davehsug]

It happened to me a few years ago (pre-Covid), travelling from Stoke to Wolverhampton. The chap even showed me his reservation ticket with the same seat number as mine.

 

[Jonny]

Having read that XC does this, what is my best argument next Monday if I find my reserved 1st class seats Tiverton - Plymouth - Tiverton are occupied by someone else with a "valid" claim?

Presumably, the reservation display would be the first go-to. The enforceability of the reservation depends on it.

 

[PsychoMouse]

I know Avanti have been having issues with tickets bought through Trainline having seat reservations for seats which have already been reserved by somebody else.

Something similar happening at XC maybe?

 

[357]

Recently Trainline have been issuing reservations to people who have been bumped off a cancelled train but for only part of the journey. Puts traincrew in a very awkward situation.

Eg train from A - C is cancelled
Next train only has a seat available from A - B, another passenger has already reserved the seat from B - C, but the Trainline email doesn't make that clear.

 

[The exile]

Presumably, the reservation display would be the first go-to. The enforceability of the reservation depends on it.

With Cross-Country’s official policy of allowing you to reserve a seat someone is already sitting in, I doubt that would always help. (I’m not referring to double booking but the appalling ability to reserve a seat once the train has departed - ie pay to kick someone out of a seat.)

 

[Royston Vasey]

In July I embarrassingly turned up with a Derby to Birmingham CCST reservation issued by Trainsplit about 6 weeks earlier. Train was full but decided to exercise my rights (!) to find that the person in "my" seat had a Manchester to Coventry reservation. Definitely the right seat, coach and departure time, reservation displays backed her up and not me!

 

[357]

With Cross-Country’s official policy of allowing you to reserve a seat someone is already sitting in, I doubt that would always help. (I’m not referring to double booking but the appalling ability to reserve a seat once the train has departed - ie pay to kick someone out of a seat.)

With the length of some of their journeys changing the policy the other way would mean trains are unavailable for reservation 12 hours before the service arrives at that passengers station. Also not ideal.

 

[Class172]

I travel on XC all the time and have never witnessed this. Every time I've seen two people who thought they had reserved the same seat, one of them always has the wrong seat/carriage/time/service/date.

Yes that has been my experience too. One time I boarded with a friend and we had seat reservations at a table. A couple were sat in our seats which I politely pointed out to them but they were adamant that the seats were theirs. Given the seats on the other side of the table were empty (but reserved) we said we’d sit there for now. It was only once I’d sat down did I closely read the reservation screens: our reservation was correct and they should have been sat in the seats they had left free. Why, I have no idea, but that’s the usual sort of thing that seems to happen if it’s not a mix up of coach or service.

 

[The exile]

With the length of some of their journeys changing the policy the other way would mean trains are unavailable for reservation 12 hours before the service arrives at that passengers station. Also not ideal.

Why? Reserving a seat is something you do for a planned journey. If you’re leaving it to the day you’re basically taking the risk that there are none left anyway. Reservation in advance has been standard practice for the best part of 200 years and still is elsewhere. That in itself in not a valid reason for keeping it that way - but it is an indication that XC’s practise is an outlier that can inconvenience and disconcert.

 

[WestAnglian]

It happened to me a few years ago (pre-Covid), travelling from Stoke to Wolverhampton. The chap even showed me his reservation ticket with the same seat number as mine.

It happened to me on a Stansted - Leeicester once. Well, I thought it did. I later decided that I'd probably mistaken an A on the ticket, meaning an airline-style seat, for coach A. In other words I was in the wrong carriage.

 

[357]

Why? Reserving a seat is something you do for a planned journey. If you’re leaving it to the day you’re basically taking the risk that there are none left anyway. Reservation in advance has been standard practice for the best part of 200 years and still is elsewhere. That in itself in not a valid reason for keeping it that way - but it is an indication that XC’s practise is an outlier that can inconvenience and disconcert.

Yes and 200 years ago we were still using horses and steam.

I frequently reserve a seat 15-20 minutes before departure on LNER. I wait until I know what train I'm getting, rather than reserving one on 3 or 4 different trains.

For sure it's a risk there will be no seats left, but if you know that you can look at other options.

I am a big fan of late notice reservations however I think there does need to be more advertising for it and also a way that you can reserve the seat you're sitting in once onboard the train.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I am a big fan of late notice reservations however I think there does need to be more advertising for it and also a way that you can reserve the seat you're sitting in once onboard the train.

FWIW you can do this on LNER because there's a seat selector in the app. Other than the fake compulsory nonsense (which isn't necessary) I think LNER do this quite well.

While I don't think it's implemented yet, Avanti have gone one further in having cameras that detect seat occupancy so an occupied seat isn't offered for reservation.

 

[ValentaFan1974]

Certainly not policy, but I witnessed it with my own eyes yesterday. Two people got on my train at Exeter St Davids with 1st class reservations for exactly the same seat - thankfully there were a couple of spare seats so one of them moved to the spare seat. I wouldn’t have believed it until I saw it with my own eyes. Both bought through Trainline I believe….

 

[option]

I travel on XC all the time and have never witnessed this. Every time I've seen two people who thought they had reserved the same seat, one of them always has the wrong seat/carriage/time/service/date.

Which isn't helped by XC missing out random letters when they organise carriages.
Had one last week that was ACDF.

 

[gg1]

I know Avanti have been having issues with tickets bought through Trainline having seat reservations for seats which have already been reserved by somebody else.

Could the use of multiple booking engines be the root cause of this, ie a lag in comms between the Trainline and Avanti's booking system causing a newly booked seat to still flag as available for a short period?

The one time this happened to me was on a Virgin service 5-10 years ago booked through my employer's travel booking system.

 

[ValentaFan1974]

If it’s a voyager train, there is never a coach E - it doesn’t exist. Coach B only appears on 5 car voyagers and it’s a completely unreserved carriage anyway.

 

[Haywain]

Certainly not policy, but I witnessed it with my own eyes yesterday. Two people got on my train at Exeter St Davids with 1st class reservations for exactly the same seat - thankfully there were a couple of spare seats so one of them moved to the spare seat. I wouldn’t have believed it until I saw it with my own eyes. Both bought through Trainline I believe….

I'm willing to bet that one of them had changed their seat (or train) after booking and forgotten about that, so were still trying to use the original reservation.

 

[swt_passenger]

Which isn't helped by XC missing out random letters when they organise carriages.
Had one last week that was ACDF.

Exactly as they’ve been on 4 cars since first delivery then.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Which isn't helped by XC missing out random letters when they organise carriages.
Had one last week that was ACDF.

The reason letters are missing is so the coaches with the same layout are always the same letter, so if there's a set swap at least some of the reservations still work. Exactly the same as for Pendolinos. E was held back for insertion of another coach which never happened. So 4s are ACDF and 5s ABCDF, and a theoretical 6 would have been ABCDEF.

 

[bleeder4]

It's not a problem that's unique to the UK. I remember being on a TGV in France from Marseille to Paris. A chap gets on at Avignon with exactly the same seat number as me printed on his ticket. I had it reserved from Marseille to Paris (so was already occupying it), he had it reserved from Avignon to Paris. Same coach, same seat. Once he realised I was English he wandered off to find the SNCF conductor and, after some discussion in French, he was directed to an alternate seat.

 

[Skiddaw]

I saw it happen on a XC train I was on a couple of years back. Deffo same two seats. Train manager was very apologetic and said it did happen occasionally. He couldn't find alternative seats for the unlucky couple (as it happens, one couple were elderly and the second couple had a very young child) so I vacated my seat in a public spirited fashion and stood in the vestibule (so at least one half of the couple could sit down with the baby).

 

[dk1]

It’s usually one of the passengers fault. I never reserve but have had people demand they’ve booked my seat and that I should move. Every single time they’ve got it wrong whether it be wrong coach, train or that they think A after the number means the coach when actually it means ‘Airline’ style seating. I insist on scrutinising the reservation first.