Following this event I experienced last Sunday, I am left wondering what passenger rights are, should they have a reservation in a first class seat with a standard class ticket.
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Having a Reservation in First Class with a Standard Class Ticket
- Thread starter superalbs
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Following this event I experienced last Sunday, I am left wondering what passenger rights are, should they have a reservation in a first class seat with a standard class ticket.
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Llanigraham
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I cannot see how you can have a Second Class reservation in a First Class carriage. That doesn't make sense.
Perhaps you would like to give us a full explanation?
Perhaps you would like to give us a full explanation?
A Challenge
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They have a right to use the seat for the length of their reservation, but not the use of other first class facilities such as complimentary food and drinks.
Wallsendmag
Established Member
Are you sure it wasn’t the composite coach and they were in the wrong half?
The seat numbers would still not match up though.
It was a set swap, many people said they had reserved seats in what was then the first class carriage.
221129
Established Member
Then the reservations are void.
I've had this happen when on Virgin Trains sent a 390 in place of 2*221, standard was rammed. I sat in the correctly numbered seat, as a lot of other people were doing. The guard, being realistic about the fact the train had fewer standard seats and more first seats was being pragmatic and asked anyone with an actual 1st ticket to identify themselves to the catering staff, who checked tickets and handed out the food and drink.
But that wasn't just first being in the wrong place, it was a significant difference in the ratio of 1st/standard seating available.
But that wasn't just first being in the wrong place, it was a significant difference in the ratio of 1st/standard seating available.
They might be void if any of the following were true:
- Announcements or notices indicate that they are
- No reservation labels or indicators are displayed at seats anywhere on the train
But if they are displayed on the train and have not been cancelled by notices or announcements to the contrary, then the fact that a different type of rolling stock is in use is immaterial.
221129
Established Member
A standard class ticket does NOT entitle you to a first class seat, unless stated otherwise. Reservation or no reservation.
A seat reservation accompanying a ticket logically and obviously entitles one to sit in that specific seat, regardless of where the train company decides to put that seat on the train.
221129
Established Member
However it does not entitle one to a free upgrade.
You are entitled to sit in the seat which you have reserved. There are no special conditions attached to this.
If the train company would like to suspend that entitlement they may do so by cancelling all reservations. Provided that this is communicated clearly, this is their prerogative. Obviously it does mean they'll also be required to offer refunds to anyone who had reserved a seat who decides not to travel, and compensation in accordance with the and NRCoT and their charter to anyone who travels with a seat reservation but cannot sit down.
A few months ago a friend of mine was placed in a 'premier' coach on Eurostar despite having a standard ticket, because there had been some kind of technical issue with the seat reservations. The train manager let him stay, and he even got the food and alcohol!
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Eurostar do sometimes do this deliberately (which is nice if you get it, though you're not, I think, meant to get the freebies). But Eurostar is a bit different, because it's more like an airline in that the ticket and the seat reservation are one and the same.
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
You are entitled to sit in the seat which you have reserved.
I have had the pleasure a few years ago where NXEC had a shortage of standard class HST carriages and so put first class carriages in the rake as a replacement. I also had it when Virgin XC had the same issue. It's good fortune. It used to happen too when NXEC/GNER MkIVs had more 1st class carriages and fewer standard than a HST did; when a 91 subbed a HST some reservations had to go in 1st.
You're not entitled to the other freebies, of course.
Which is in the North Pole Traincare Depot.
Whereas the actual contract is based on the class of the ticket, if the bylaws of not having a correct ticket to remain in first class, then sorry that reservation can not be claimed
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
That's different, in that case the coach is explicitly declassified and is a Standard class coach despite looking like a First Class one. Exactly the same as in the likely event of LNR guards declassifying 1st on the 350s, which happens so often that I wonder why anyone ever buys a 1st ticket.
You only, on most TOCs, have the right to sit in your reserved seat IF reservations are placed.
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Belperpete
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If there was a set-swap, then it is unlikely that the reservations were displayed, and so as Bletchleyite says, the reservations were void. However, the logical thing to do where a set-swap has resulted in a first-class coach in place of a standard, would surely be to de-classify that coach, not turf the standard-class passengers out of their reserved seats.
Belperpete
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I had the reverse happen to me. Me and a couple of colleagues were booked by our client to travel premier-class to Paris. My colleagues sailed through check-in, but my ticket caused lots of teeth-sucking and humming and harring. I ended up in the luggage area! I would have raised a bit of a stink about it had I paid for the ticket myself. Fortunately the guard found me a decent no-show seat shortly after departure.
On East Midlands Trains, I also once found my reserved seat was a luggage rack. It was just after they had taken out a couple of seats to put in the mid-coach luggage racks.
Tetchytyke
Veteran Member
Same applies on a set swap: there won't be any first class reservations in it, after all. Why not just declassify it?
This used to happen every week (for a few years), on two specific services on LNER on a Sunday:
1845 LDS - KGX
2135 KGX - LDS
These were pre-planned to be a hired-in EMT HST, on which coach F is the buffet vehicle, with a small number of First Class seats.
The seating plan reflected a normal LNER HST, where coach F is a Standard class vehicle.
So people booked in coach F with a Standard Class ticket, had a First Class seat.
From extensive experience of the 1845 (and more limited experience of the 2135), some Guards made the affected people move into Standard, whereas some allowed them to remain in their reserved seats.
1845 LDS - KGX
2135 KGX - LDS
These were pre-planned to be a hired-in EMT HST, on which coach F is the buffet vehicle, with a small number of First Class seats.
The seating plan reflected a normal LNER HST, where coach F is a Standard class vehicle.
So people booked in coach F with a Standard Class ticket, had a First Class seat.
From extensive experience of the 1845 (and more limited experience of the 2135), some Guards made the affected people move into Standard, whereas some allowed them to remain in their reserved seats.
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