My best friend and I are going to England next month for one of Taylor Swift’s concerts (June 15 in Liverpool) and some sightseeing. Will we need seat reservations for our train from London to Liverpool? I’m only asking because of how popular her concerts tend to be, and I want to make sure that we can get a seat on the train when a lot of people are going to be going to Liverpool for the same purpose, and this might make the train more crowded.
Thank you.
Almost all ticket types, if you are on an Avanti West Coast direct train to Liverpool, include a free seat reservation with the ticket anyway. So that is not a concern- or are you travelling on a Britrail pass or something similar?- in which case a reservation would certainly be advised.
If I was actually buying a ticket to Liverpool that weekend then Avanti have applied surge pricing by withdrawing all cheap Advance tickets. If it was me I would be putting myself to the minor inconvenience of changing trains at Crewe with "split ticketing". Take one Avanti train to Crewe on an Advance Ticket then change trains onto the Euston to Liverpool train buying an Off Peak Day Single. You will have seat reservations on both trains.
You can easily save £30 each by doing that- given what you will have paid for your hotels that is useful money.
If you take a slower London North Western train from Euston to Crewe (no seat reservations, but doesn't matter much on that leg) you can save as much as £50 each.
to elaborate on Stuart's good advice, to be clear - London Northwestern Railway trains, no matter how long the journey, are all commuter trains, with either 3+2 seating or 2+2 seating all second class so there is no 1st class. All the previous 1st class has been declassified and opened up as additional 2nd class seating. They do not do reservations - you can't get reservations because there aren't any, any time. It has been at least 10 years since their predecessor had reservations.
They can't sell out, so if the train is full and there are no available seats you (and /or other people) stand until some become available.
To add, both my best friend and I are going to be getting BritRail passes because there are several other side trips we want to take using the train system. The only one I’m concerned about regarding overcrowding is London to Liverpool because of the Taylor concert.
Right, so what you do need to do is to create an account with Great Western Railway. I know you are travelling on Avanti but this is the way to make free seat reservations independent of a ticket for any UK train from anywhere in the world.
Once you have an account select 'Bookings' in the top row of options, then the button 'Make a seat/bike reservation'- then choose your train and date, then a ticket type (off peak single or anytime single will do) then your seat options- facing/back, window/aisle, table or airline style seating, quiet coach or no.
And you have your seats reserved.
Fabulous, thank you. That takes a lot off my mind.
If you book on the Avanti west coast website you can pick your seats and they will have a "reserved" sign above them. You will be on from the start of the train's journey but IME you can almost guarantee there will be a purple haired student sat in your seats.
briwire is right. There's a good chance you might find someone in your seat, but all you have to do is politely let them know that this is your seat and you have a reservation. Check the numbers carefully before you do, though, because sometimes it's hard to tell which seat is which. Feel free to ask someone if you're unsure and they're usually happy to help.
As you have stated that you are travelling on a Britrail pass you cannot make a seat reservation only on the Avanti website, whatever anyone else here says. They are just plain wrong. You can only buy tickets with seat reservations (which you have already said is NOT what you need) on the Avanti website. So you end up paying another £78 each.
The route I gave you is the only way to make an independent seat reservation, on something like a railpass- other than paying ACORP to make what is a free reservation, or waiting until you are here and making the reservation at a station.
I actually made a seat reservation for that day to Liverpool earlier on the Great Western site- for the 0843 to prove it was working. So there are now 2 seats reserved on that train which will not be used!! Car E Seats 39 and 40.
