Solved

How do you make reservations in advance with a paper pass?

  • 4 January 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 215 views

After much research into mobile paper vs. paper pass, I am leaning towards getting a paper pass just for simplicity’s sake and ease of use. However, I am still confused as to how I would make reservations on train in France for example WITHOUT buying an entire ticket from the native train company in order to get a seat reserved. Is it possible to make a reservation through the eurail.com website WITHOUT a mobile pass even if you own a paper pass?

The situation I’m in is I’m from Canada and will be flying to France sometime soon but I dont know how to make a reservation on the TGV trains in advance if I had a paper pass. I assume showing up to the station one day early would make my chance of getting a seat reservation quite slim, but if I can't purchase a reservation in advance (ie on the eurail app or website), I might be in a bit of a pickle.

 

Thanks for any help!

icon

Best answer by rvdborgt 4 January 2023, 19:23

View original

2 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +9

For making reservations, it doesn't make a difference whether you have a mobile or a paper pass. Reservations are entirely separate from the pass and you can make them wherever you like: via the Eurail website, the b-europe website, by phone via SNCF, SNCF ticket machine or SNCF ticket office, to name a few.

Userlevel 7
Badge +5

YOur fears are not that much justified-but very much depend on time of yr and how flexible you allow yourself to be. In fact it is very, very easy and also gives a splendid overveiw to do it for TGV-INland (NOT for going over border) on the machines of SNCF-the minor new hurdle is now that they do not print tix anymore-it gets sent to your @mail or fone. Its 10€ for in quota-that seems also to vary a lot with route, dayofweek etc or 20 as long as seats there are. Except for some very busy peakdays, a  few days advance is thus very well doable. And its not like to Winnipeg-3/week-most at least hourly.

YOu can also do it online via b-europe, but then pay an extra 4€ per order. Just invent a pass-cvr nr.

The point that turns up every time from newbees here seems to be:

1.they all are hell-bound to want only use some specific routes/trains, and then want to book it way too far advance when not yet possible

2.all confuse INland and INTERNational.

B smarter and adapt!

Reply