Great Western Coffee Shop

Has anyone noticed the number of Bristol - Bath seat reservations on the CDF-PMH services?

I counted at least 10 in my coach on Friday, plus a PMS-PMH reservation, which raises two questions:

1. why do people reserve a seat for a journey of this short length and then not sit in it?

2. why do people book in advance (and possibly pay booking/delivery fees) for a journey which costs the same on the day?

I find these reservations simply cause delays as people spend long periods of time looking for unreserved seats when boarding the train.

1.  I think you've answered your own question, an advance ticket has to have a reservation if that train is reservable, but most people don't bother to track them down.

2.  Remember that any advance ticket from Bath which involves a change at Bristol would have to have a reservation.  So if you booked your Bath Spa to Birmingham Advance Single at ^13.50, you'd get reservations on the Bath to Bristol leg if the service was reservable as well as the XC bit from Bristol to Birmingham.

The best connections at Temple Meads for journeys to and from points north via Birmingham New Street are indeed on the Cardiff-Pompey services.

Ah, I see now.  All makes sense but still a bit silly forcing a reservation on such a short journey.

Would also explain the PMS-PMH reservation: someone has bought a ticket to PMH but bought an advance ticket for a service that terminates at PMS thus shoving them onto FGW for the last part.

Exactly - if someone buys an advance ticket then the reservation system will automatically reserve them seats on every reservable sector of the journey, no matter how short. I suspect that almost no-one who is just travelling from Bristol to Bath reserves, they'll just be connecting services. A good reason why it's always worth checking the reservation labels on busy trains, since many of them will only apply between two stations!

I regularly travel between Cardiff and Bristol Parkway as of late and sometimes it is cheaper to book an advance ticket via Filton Abbey Wood. The only part of the journey that requires the reservation is the Filton to Parkway section which requires a change which ultimately leads to me requireing a seat reservation from Filton to Parkway. The Cardiff to Filton section is on the Taunton service so no reservation required for the section so I do wonder the point of the seat reservation but I guess it shows I'm supposed to be on the train.

(I know it's not the direct way but sometimes it's cheaper so that's another pint I'm saving  ;))

I noticed that Arriva Trains Wales have announced on their website that their advance tickets will no longer automatically come with a seat reservation.  The ticket will still have a reservation coupon showing the train you need to travel on, and the website says that seat reservations can still be included free of charge if required, when purchasing a ticket.  See

http://www.arrivatrainswales.co.uk/281010SeatReservations/ (http://www.arrivatrainswales.co.uk/281010SeatReservations/)

best wishes

Jeremy

Following in SWT's footsteps to a degree with Advance ticket reservations just being for the train and not the seat. The exception being that you can't reserve a seat with SWT.

Reading the fine-print, you don't get a seat reservation with ATW unless you physically visit a station ticket office and buy your ticket there, which is great customer service for their customers in west and mid-Wales where staffed stations are few and far between, and even then have very restricted opening hours.