Bike Reservations on National Express

[Wowbagger]

I've seen several posts referring to the fact that you can book your own bike reservations online at National Express East Anglia. I've bought a few tickets online from them, but never found out how to make the bike reservation. Will someone please elucidate?

[Greenbank]

Do you mean National Express East Coast ? (It is easier to type www.gner.co.uk and let it redirect you.)

The East Anglia version just looks like a rebadged "TheTrainline.com" which you can't book bicycle spaces on.

I've booked at least a dozen train journeys, with bike reservations, on the NEEC website and never had a problem with any of them. Plus they post the tickets to you for free, rather than charging you £1 like TheTrainline.

[JohnP]

wow - what a mess.   Some trains do not take bikes; some take bikes but must reserve; some take bikes and no need to reserve; no tandems, trikes etc

but, like you, still haven't seen where to reserve space.


At least, once you have booked you and bike are covered by the recovery service - if bike breaks down they recover you both to the nearest station.   Hope it's a station that allows bikes on trains !

[RichForrest]

I've used the NEEC site a couple of times.
If the bike needs a reservation it will book it on.
You need to go to the "on board our trains" link at the top, then onto the cycle page.
Reservation tickets for the bike come with the others.

Rich.

[disrail]

This leaflet may have the necessary info.
http://nationalrail.co.uk/system/galleries/download/misc/CyclingbyTrain.pdf

The only other way I beleive is to buy tickets at a station and make the reservation there (why this can't be done over the phone I don't know)

[Greenbank]

When you go looking for the tickets, you'll only be able to book tickets on trains that you're able to reserve a seat on. Look for the following symbols on the train info panel:-



Then, when you select your train and ticket price you'll be able to select your seating preferences. Look for the "bicycle space" button highlighted here and click it:-



When you click this it expands to select a drop down of the number of cycle spaces you want (max 1 per ticket):-

[Greenbank]

There are many reasons why you won't be able to reserve tickets on a train:

1) Problems with the reservation system. I've seen this once, left it a couple of hours and checked back again and all was ok.
2) It's a commuter style train where there are no reservations (at all). Most of the time you can just turn up and put the bike on with no problems.
3) Reservations are only available within 3 months of travel.
4) etc.

I've also seen the NEEC website fail to give you seat reservation options if you have more than one journey in the "Order Summary" pane on the 2nd picture of mine.

If in doubt go to your local station or phone GNER/NEEC/someone else and speak to a human.