Fault with LNER seat selection

[CTS1990]

Slightly bizarre situation here...I've amended my seat to ensure a forward-facing position on a 225 service. My return journey is on an Azuma, but it's now telling me there is a technical fault. Has anyone else experienced this before?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Slightly bizarre situation here...I've amended my seat to ensure a forward-facing position on a 225 service. My return journey is on an Azuma, but it's now telling me there is a technical fault. Has anyone else experienced this before?

Yes. Because of how it does the selection (it grabs a new ticket at the same price point for the new seat then puts the old one back) it's not possible to change the seat if there aren't any more tickets available at the price point you purchased. Unfortunately they didn't see fit to actually put a message on explaining the reason for the failure.

You may prefer instead to use the seat reservation tool to reserve an entirely separate seat not related to your ticket.

 

[CTS1990]

Yes. Because of how it does the selection (it grabs a new ticket at the same price point for the new seat then puts the old one back) it's not possible to change the seat if there aren't any more tickets available at the price point you purchased. Unfortunately they didn't see fit to actually put a message on explaining the reason for the failure.

You may prefer instead to use the seat reservation tool to reserve an entirely separate seat not related to your ticket.

I see. Thanks for the tip!

 

[LickeyIncliner]

... You may prefer instead to use the seat reservation tool to reserve an entirely separate seat not related to your ticket.

But beware of the possibility that the seat reservation tool may tell you that you have a reservation, and then send you an email with subject "Your seat reservation for ...", but when you read the email carefully it says "No seat available".

Only a possibility, but very annoying when it happens!

 

[OscarH]

it grabs a new ticket at the same price point for the new seat then puts the old one back

Is this still the case, I did think LNER had gone through the (rather troublesome) migration that improved that

But beware of the possibility that the seat reservation tool may tell you that you have a reservation, and then send you an email with subject "Your seat reservation for ...", but when you read the email carefully it says "No seat available".

Only a possibility, but very annoying when it happens!

I wonder if this is what happens if it gets a counted place which is technically a reservation of sorts, rather than no reservation at all (which hopefully would error)

 

[LickeyIncliner]

I wonder if this is what happens if it gets a counted place which is technically a reservation of sorts, rather than no reservation at all (which hopefully would error)

It's not the same as the "seat reservation with no seat" message that you get from some TOCs if you buy an Advance ticket on a service that doesn't have any seat reservation arrangements. As far as I know all LNER seat reservations are for an actual seat. In the case I'm warning about, you get two messages saying you have a seat reservation, but when you look for the actual seat number you find you haven't got anything at all. It's annoying, and could easily mislead someone with an open ticket into thinking that they couldn't use the train they wanted to.