Reserve a seat up to 10 minutes before travel by text message
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Your journey
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Please note: If you have booked in advance online or at a station, you will have received your seat reservation at the time of booking. If you have a Season ticket, or have booked your journey and haven't received a seat reservation, please use our Ten Minute Reservation service below to book a seat.This service is for seat reservations on the day of travel only. Please only use this service after 6am on the day you are due to travel.
What is Ten Minute Reservation?
This free service is available on the majority of our services, in both Standard and First Class. Reservations are subject to availability and are free of charge. Please check with your network operator for any SMS charges.
How does Ten Minute Reservation work?
We've put together a simple three step process:
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Search for your origin and destination, and select First Class or Standard Class, please note; to reserve a seat in First Class, you will require a valid First Class ticket.
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Select the code generated from your journey search, which will include your origin station code, your destination station code, and the time of your journey. For example:
If you would like to travel on the 09:42 from Birmingham New Street (BHM) to Cheltenham Spa (CNM), your text code would look like this 'BHM CNM 0942'. Then you simply text that code to the number 07537410037.
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Use the link generated, and this will auto generate a text message on your device (mobile only), if for some reason the link doesn't auto generate a text message, simply type out your code and text it to 07537410037.
You will then receive a response with your seat reservation, please have this handy along side your ticket when you board the train.
General reservations
You can reserve a seat on our services (subject to availability) when:
- You buy a ticket before the day of travel
- You buy a ticket with a reservation on the day of travel via our site or Train Tickets app
- Contact our Customer Relations team at least one day before your departure (if you have booked your journey and haven't received a seat reservation)