Seat reservations

mcmillkm

I have booked through takethetrain.co.uk. good deal on advanced tickets unfortunately the seats are separate and not together I have had the following communications with the booking company who claim to have no responsibility to how the bookings are made.

Quote

During the booking process the system would have asked you for your seating preferences, this preference would have been sent to the rail operator and the rail operator would have returned the best available seating. The rail operator doesn't give takethetrain.co.uk access to a seat map, or allow specific seat numbers to be requested. For your information the seat availability can be based on a pre-booking quota's, fare booking code quota's or be impacted by generally how busy the service is at the time of booking and therefore the rail provider doesn't offer any preference guarantee.

Sorry you were unhappy with the seating returned by the rail operator.

My reply

This is a poor reply you are offering a service and have a duty of customer care.

There are plenty seats available together which can be confirmed by visiting Virgin trains
own site. I will think twice about using your service again in the future and will certainly
not recommend your service to others.

Changes can be made to reservations but only through the booking company as far as I can see
the seats on the return journey are at the same table.

The seats going to London are behind each other and could easily be changed if you made the effort
B8 and B12. (what would happen if this was a family with children would you have them sitting away
from each other ??)

Their reply

Unfortunately our website is a booking site only that connects directly to the train operator, the seats that were provided at time of booking would have been allocated by the train operator and not us.

Unquote

What do you think have they responsibility to sort out the complaint ????

p00hsticks

I've never used that site - were you not given an opportunity to see the seat reservations before you concluded the booking ?

victor2

Unfortunately, I would not think they have a responsibility to sort it out. They would argue you presumably saw the seat numbers that came back and accepted them. Actually recognising when seat numbers are adjacent can be a bit of a challenge, but they'll probably still say it's your choice to accept and complete the order.

mcmillkm

No the seat reservations do not show up on this site but do on the Virgin site which was unfortunately was showing double the price at the time of booking and one train with a change of train at Crewe.

cookie365

Would it not be less hassle to ask if you can swap seats with someone nearby when you board the train?

Buzby

You pay your money and accepted the reduction? On the day, you'll probably find the adjacent seats may well be empty and you can swap. Since seat reservations are free, the number of reserved no shows is incredible.

thegirlintheattic

I wouldn't worry. You maybe able to swap; if not a few hours apart won't hurt.