Trainline booking rubbish seats

[OhamIreally]

I’ve used Trainline for years and always been happy with them. The last couple of times I’ve used them though the seats have been rubbish.

I requested a forward facing table seat and got a backward facing seat airline style with no window. Now I know it’s the luck of the draw and someone has to have those seats but we had the exact same seats on the way back (albeit forward facing this time😁). A four hour train journey with no window is a bit depressing.

I’ve booked another journey on a different train carrier (1st class this time) and can see on the seat plan it’s another rubbish seat.

Anyone else getting this or am I just unlucky?

On the Trainline, and Avanti (and probably on other company sites), just click on the button that pops up that allows you to change the allocated seat. I use this function all the time.

Surely you’re being allocated what’s available at the time you book?

When we went to London in the summer, I would say probably 95% plus of seats were reserved. The ones unreserved were just random odd seats.

I’d expect you would have been given what you requested had it been available.

I haven’t seen that button on Trainline does it show you the seat it’s proposing to book then? I usually complete the booking and then the reserved seat shows in the app.

I don’t understand. It asks you your preferences which you enter and then it tells you the available seats and you book? So you should only not get something suitable if the train is rammed - and even then I would check directly with the service provider before booking.

If you ever travel with LNER, if you book on their direct website, it has a seatmap and you can select your own seat, like on a plane. I never book with trainline anymore. We always book the exact seats we want now.

Trainline charges a booking fee - I'm not paying that! Book through the operator of the journey as they will have the best availability of seats. Look up split tickets through Train Split for the best price and then book them on the operator's website. All train companies sell tickets for all trains, so I'll quite often book on GWR for Cross Country trains.

Why book with TrainLine when you can book with the train operators app and it be cheaper?