Hello all, I wanted some insight and to make sure I'm not missing something. I'm booking trains for our Scotland journey, but am running into an issue when it comes to figuring out the seating. I'm booking for 7 adults and 5 kids for Gateway to Inverness. I'm planning to book online in advance for ease and better pricing for the adults. The issue is that I can book seats for the 7 adults, however I cannot purchase tickets for the kids in advance because we will be taking advantage of the Quids for Kids program which only allows in person/on train purchase of kids tickets. This means I cannot select or have seats allocated in advance because then the 5 kids are not included in that arrangement. I know that it is possible that the whole group may not have been seated together to start with, but does this seem like is going to end poorly? I'm just concerned that when boarding with 2 adults and 3 kids there may not be a good seating option left. Thoughts/ideas? Thanks in advance!
Posted by
Lake District, England
11660 posts
The answer is to book seats (only) with Transpennine Express. I know you are not travelling with TPE but you can book seats with them for any reservable train in the UK- https://ticket.tpexpress.co.uk/account
Those reservations are wholly independent of any tickets you hold (or don't). Older posts on the forum say to use GWR, but they have had to disable that function.
You need to create an account with them- and can only book for 9 people (any mixture of adults and children) at a time- so you could book seats for the whole party of 12 in two transactions.
When you say 'Gateway' I assume you mean Edinburgh Gateway station.
Currently I have 3 or 4 dozen reservations made on TPE for various train companies in the next few weeks- but do not currently have tickets for any of those journeys!!