Train seat reservations

What?! I would refuse to sit and force the cabin crew to do something about it.

I have never heard of cabin crew doing nothing.

I always kick people out of my reserved seat and they always have an attitude.

Other people’s lack of organisation is not my problem (and I don’t care if they are disabled, pregnant, old or have kids. I kick them out of my reserved seat.)

Thank you for the heads up will keep it in mind and be there first!

I was on an avanti train last week and they double booked our seats. We got there first thankfully. The other people had to go and look for another seat. No idea if they found one. They were very nice about it thankfully. But we all definitely had identical tickets.

Oh no i have an avanti booked next month hopefully it won't be a sprint to my seat! Ill send my Dd they are fitter than me 😀

There was a thread the other day on which someone mentioned that a man was sat in their premium economy seat and refused to move and cabin crew did nothing.

Yep 🤣🤣. I wondered if they were joking to start with! “We want a window. We told the airline we wanted a window. We prefer these seats” 🤣

It's all part of the decline of society sadly....but some of the people who contribute to this problem are on this website, let alone on this thread maybe.

For certain people, if they get it in their head that another person has an "advantage" in life that gives them more, they will start to wind themselves up into a frenzy to find out how they can nip in and "take" it without being seen as a CF.

It's why we can never have a debate about P&C spaces. It's why people "stand their ground" when taking seats on trains that they didn't book.

Depends tbh. I’ve booked a seat before and then staff have asked me to give it up as it was a disabled seat. Apparently that makes it priority for those in need and you can be made to stand.

Would have been fine with it if it wasn’t in First and they sat me there. Hey ho, I got my money back.

That's outrageous! They wanted a window? lol!

Yes and then it causes a load of arguments as if to the reservations exist or not and bad communication.

I also used to get pretty annoyed when I'd paid thousands on a season ticket to commute to London, and on my peak time train home it was often taken up full of people going all the way to Cornwall or somewhere, who'd paid a fraction of the cost I was paying per day. I would have appreciated a seat for the first 30 minutes and then would have gladly handed it over!

I had a situation where I booked on the Avanti website and someone else had booked on Trainline for the same seat. Luckily I got there first. She rather arrogantly asked me to move: I refused to leave, obviously, as I was sat in the seat I booked. She got the train manager and was eventually found another seat in the carriage with much huffing and puffing and glaring at me, as if I had done it deliberately.

One time, a massive group of foreign students had taken all the booked seats. The train manager moved me and others to first class, we could not physically move down the aisle to ask them to move.

A wheelchair user may not be able to "summon" the guard. Unless they carry an air horn for attention. Which I've seen done, but it's regarded as poor form.

On trains, people have always moved without complaint when I’ve politely and apologetically pointed out that I’ve reserved the seats they’re in.

However, I did have an issue on a flight last year. We boarded, to discover someone in our seats. I assumed I’d got confused, triple checked our boarding cards, and politely pointed out that they were in our seats. I was met with a response that they knew, but that they wanted window seats rather than the ones they’d been allocated. “We told the airline we wanted a window”. They refused to move again. At this point, cabin crew came as they could see the aisle was blocked. They told me I had to sit where I booked. I explained that was precisely what we were trying to do and showed our boarding cards. Even cabin crew were confused why the others had decided they could sit in our seats. Eventually, they did get the others to move but it was one of more bizarre experiences on a plane I’ve had. Some people are ridiculous.

Exactly this ⬆️
It is poor behaviour to sit in a seat someone else has reserved. But it’s perfectly possible for it to be dealt with without incident. In this situation I have smiled nicely and pointed out my ticket with the seat number on it.

On the rare occasions the person has still refused to move, I’ve just spoken with the guard / ticket collector and said, ‘There seems to be some confusion, I believe I have this seat booked’ and gestured politely to the person sitting in it.

If there had ever been no member of train staff there, I’d have stood right next to the seat, staring at them and smiling politely until they moved. 🙂 Sometimes I think people just want to see what they can get away with - like a dominance thing.

Just want to clarify I don't think Ableist is an actual buzzword, just the misuse of.

Buzzwords to try and make a point! I am physically disabled i book long distance train seats, those people could have done the same, you did nothing wrong.

It's where you can park wheelchair users to stay for when the booked help at a station isn't there and they can't get off the train.

I’ve turfed dozens of people out of my prebooked seats over the years, a few have protested with a feeble excuse but I just say, not all disabilities are visible and leave it hanging, only once did I have to call the guard to help, I’d booked 4 around a table for my family and two lads refused to move, the guard turfed them out at Luton as they didn’t even have valid tickets

Happened to me once - some woman and her companion was sitting in our seats. When we politely explained she said 'I'll have to see if any other seats are free before I move'. No mate, I booked those seats.

Part of the problemon trains is you can reserve a seat when the train is already in service... so the seat a person thought was available when they sat in it becomes unavailable halfway through their journey.

Plus people dont see the tiny screens... or get a split ticket and dont realise its a different seat... or misread the numbers...

Or just think they are more important.

If someone sits if your plane seat there’s no guarantee they’ll be moved from that either. The difference is planes aren’t generally overbooked like trains so you’ll just get given a seat elsewhere. But even if you book a particular seat on a plane there’s no guarantee you’ll get that particular seat.

One another thing I hate about trains is they often assign you a priority seat when you didn’t request one. I just booked a standard seat and when I arrived it was a priority seat and a disabled person was in it and they said they needed it. The guard couldn’t find me any other seats so I had to sit on the floor for 3 hours. (I could not stand for 3 hours as a have back issues).

You know they can’t physically remove them though right? If they still refuse you’re still left without a seat.

And if that was the case here, pretty sure op would not have said that the seat the woman was in was booked for them...

I have traveled on a number of trains over the past year or so. Mostly Nottingham to airports, I can’t recall the last time I have seen reservation system working. I used to often get first class but gave up when a train was cancelled and the replacement train was second class only (train to Norwich, I’m looking at you).