Northern partners with Seatfrog to reduce the cost of re-booking tickets for passengers

A Northern service with customers onboard

Train operator Northern joined forces with Seatfrog in April to enable customers with Advance Purchase tickets to benefit from greater ‘on the day’ flexibility if their travel plans changed.

Using Seatfrog, customers are able to change their ticket up until ten minutes before departure of their original train for another service departing the same day from just £2.50.

It marks a huge shift for the use of ‘Advance Purchase’ tickets, which until now, once purchased, were only valid on one service.

How do I use Seatfrog?

To make a swap on Seatfrog, you will need to enter your original booking reference or train time and destination. The system will then display a list of all the possible trains you can switch to and highlight any difference in the fare.

Once a new service has been selected and any fare difference has been paid, you will receive your swap token direct to your email inbox. You will need to present your original ticket and swap token to satisfy ticket checks.

To change your ticket should visit: https://trainswap.seatfrog.com.

Seatfrog aims to make the £93 million cost to customers (which represents bookings across all train operators) a thing of the past by expanding its services to other train operators following their successful partnership with Northern.

Iain Griffin, CEO and co-founder of Seatfrog, said: “It’s easy to buy a cheap, advance ticket, but it’s complicated, costly and stressful to change tickets if our plans change.

“We want rail to enable life, rather than getting in the way of it. So, we’re letting passengers swap trains and change tickets in just a couple of taps on the Seatfrog app.”

Mark Powles, commercial and customer director at Northern, said: “Our customers have been able to use the Seatfrog app for just over a month – and for those whose plans have changed, it’s proving popular.

“Advance Purchase tickets offer the best prices for those who can book before the day of travel, but circumstances can and do change and it’s great that we’re now able to offer customers the chance to switch trains via Seatfrog rather than have to purchase a new ticket.”

Since launching in 2018, Seatfrog has already saved consumers more than £43m across more than 3,400 destinations.

Seatfrog is available to download from the App Store and Google Play.