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NO SEAT RESERVATION required- how to get ticket???please help

  • 16 February 2023
  • 9 replies
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Good day everyone. I want to ask for some help regarding how to obtain a ticket for those trips that does not require any seat reservations as I know that the Eurail pass is not the ticket itself. How do I go about with this? Your responses are much appreciated.

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Best answer by BrendanDB 17 February 2023, 20:52

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The Eurail pass is your ticket.

You just need need to record your trip. But that's just the same if you'd need a reservation. 

Or do you hold a mobile pass and don't know how to generate a QR code for a specific travel day? But even then there's no difference. 

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The only thing you have to do is record your trip, and adding it to the pass.

This goes as the following:

  • Search a connection from A to B in the planner of the app. E.g. Brussels-Midi to Bruges. Click on the train you want to take, click save journey. Save it to a trip. The journey is now added as a journey to a trip you selected, that is linked to your pass. This trip is found under the tab “My Trip” in the app.
  • Go to the tab “My Trip”, select the trip you saved the train to. Look for the train you just saved there. Tap the grey ledger, right of that line. It now turns yellow and the app should ask “add journey to pass”. Select yes, and you should have generated your QR-code in the tab “My Pass”.
  • Go to the tab “My pass”, select your valid pass, click “Show ticket” and the QR-code is there. This QR-code IS your ticket. You have now a valid ticket and ready to board that train from e.g. Brussels to Bruges. Find a free seat, and sit. Show the QR-code upon inspection.

You can remove and add as many trains per travel day to your pass as you want. Note that each train you take needs to be registered. Besides that, you don’t have to do anything before taking a train that does not have mandatory reservations.

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Thank you for your responses. Much appreciated. My apologies I feel really silly, but I am still confused. Do I press yes even if we are not travelling yet?

 

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I get now why I am confused as it doesn’t ask me to add a journey to the pass..Why is this so?

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I get now why I am confused as it doesn’t ask me to add a journey to the pass..Why is this so?

You did add a journey to your pass in the screenshot you posted. If you do that, the pass will ask you to use a travel day if you don't have an active one yet for that date.

However, it's better not to activate travel days or your pass in advance. You can only cancel activation until 23:59 CET before validity starts. If something unexpected happens after that (e.g. you wake up sick), then it will be too late to cancel.

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I recommend you to deactivate your travel days and also deactivate your pass. Please read more about that in my next reply.

 

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Here is some useful information from the experienced travellers in the Community regarding both planning, reservations and activation of pass and travel days. 

 Planning

The rail planner is normally not up to date, as it only is updated once a month, so to be sure of the time table you better check the timetable and availability on the websites of the national railways. The bigger national railways, like DB (Germany) SBB (Switzerland) and ÖBB (Austria) cover several countries. 

 Reservations 

The advice from the experienced travellers in the community is to use other ways to make reservations than the Interrail/Eurail website.  You can look at the guide in the link:

https://community.eurail.com/train-connections-reservations-47/how-to-get-reservations-105

If you, after having looked at the guide, have questions about how to make specific reservation, please give your travel details (departure date, time and route) preferably in a new topic, and you will get advice.

Please note that Interrail/Eurail charges an extra fee of 2 EUR per person and train in addition to the fee for the seat reservation.

 Activation of pass

During the activation process you choose the start day of the validity of the pass. Once the validity has started it can't be changed even if you haven't travelled. The advice is therefore to wait with activating the pass and starting the validity until the first day of your travel as you only can deactivate the pass no later than 23.59 CET on the day before the validity starts. If your travel plans change in the last moment you can't deactivate the pass and change the validity. 

It can be wise to make a test and activate the pass with a start date well in the future and then deactivate the pass immediately, just to see that everything works.

 Activation of travel day

The advice from the experienced travellers in the community is also never to activate a travel day, that is connect a journey to your pass and create the ticket (QR code), until just before boarding the train, otherwise you might loose a travel day if your travel plans change in a late stage  You can't delete a travel day in the past. A travel day can only be deleted until 23.59 CET the day before the travel day.

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Okay, a visual explanation, step by step. As you are still a bit confused. 

1. Find your train in the planner, example here is between Ghent and Brussels. Click on the trip you want to take. No single domestic Belgian train can be reserved. 

2. Save selected yourney, and add it to a trip, linked to your pass. Then save it to the trip. 

 

3. Go to the tab "My Trip" and select the trip you just saved your journey to. This example is recycled from my summer trip. I planned to take a train earlier, but I only took the one later. The first train to Brussels is not activated, see grey ledger circled in green. The one circled in red is activated, note the yellow ledger and qr code, and was added to my pass. The QR-code is generated. Now you have a valid ticket. 

4. Ready to board. Find a seat. When inspected, go to the tab "My Pass", select the pass you added it too. Tap in a pin code or fingerprint, and show the QR code for inspection.

That's all you have to do to take a train with non-reservable seats or optional reservations. (which are more than 90% of all the trains in Europe.) 

For trains with mandatory reservation, it works the same. But you need a seat reservation and you need to prove you have a valid ticket (=your pass) . But this is completely separate from the app and your pass. But without it, no possibility to board a train with mandatory seat reservations. 

5. Only do step 3 and 4 just before boarding the train. You must be absolutely sure you're taking that train. You don't want to waste a travel day, should something uneforeseen occur. It's impossible to get a travel day back, once it's activated for the same day. 

 

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Okay, a visual explanation, step by step. As you are still a bit confused. 

1. Find your train in the planner, example here is between Ghent and Brussels. Click on the trip you want to take. No single domestic Belgian train can be reserved. 

2. Save selected yourney, and add it to a trip, linked to your pass. Then save it to the trip. 

 

3. Go to the tab "My Trip" and select the trip you just saved your journey to. This example is recycled from my summer trip. I planned to take a train earlier, but I only took the one later. The first train to Brussels is not activated, see grey ledger circled in green. The one circled in red is activated, note the yellow ledger and qr code, and was added to my pass. The QR-code is generated. Now you have a valid ticket. 

4. Ready to board. Find a seat. When inspected, go to the tab "My Pass", select the pass you added it too. Tap in a pin code or fingerprint, and show the QR code for inspection.

That's all you have to do to take a train with non-reservable seats or optional reservations. (which are more than 90% of all the trains in Europe.) 

For trains with mandatory reservation, it works the same. But you need a seat reservation and you need to prove you have a valid ticket (=your pass) . But this is completely separate from the app and your pass. But without it, no possibility to board a train with mandatory seat reservations. 

5. Only do step 3 and 4 just before boarding the train. You must be absolutely sure you're taking that train. You don't want to waste a travel day, should something uneforeseen occur. It's impossible to get a travel day back, once it's activated for the same day. 

 

OMG Brendan!!! I could not thank you enough. You answered my worries away..and to everyone who responded. Thank you so much. This is our first ever Europe trip and I just want it to be memorable and not be stressed about this pass working or not being anle yo know how the pass works. THANK UOU again so so much..

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