Maybe it's different in Standard Premier but AFAIK the rules are as follows :

- one exchange permitted through eurostar.com with a 15€ fee

- same route only

- passholder fares must still be available

I'd try to keep to a schedule for this (annoying but convenient) train. If you're travelling on a weekday from Paris you don't need to book 3 months in advance either.

The web pages I am looking at say the seats are limited. One site says only 10 left. I am travelling in May. The reason I am uncertain is that a few friends of ours are considering joining us on part of the trip but they are not as far advanced in planning as we are. I was hoping I could reserve my seat to be safe, but change to another day/time if absolutely necessary. 

What's your travel date ? There are 2 holiday weekends in May so it's better to book well in advance around those dates.

Yes seats are limited (passholder quota) but you can't really know how many are left. The cut-off is generally when ticket prices reach 170€ (Standard class). No idea about Standard Premier.

However the "10 seats left" means something else : 10 tickets left at that price. Then it'll increase.

EDIT : if you still wish to travel on or around 22th May (looking at your post history) you don't have to book right now I'd say. 

It's after the 2 holiday weekends and before school half-term holidays.

Btw after booking you can change seats for free on the same train if that's helpful. That means that you don't have to book at the same time as your friends (but you'll have to keep to the same train to avoid fees).

Thanks.  That's a little clearer.  I might just wait a few days to see what my friends are doing.

I must say, this whole idea of paying for a Eurail pass then paying extra for the seat seems strange. Particularly if the seat reservation fees keep changing as tickets sell out. It's a major paradigm shift for me.

Eurostar 1st class reservations indeed have a €20 change fee.

Thanks for the confirmation. 

I have spent hours looking through schedules trying to get my trip sorted. I’ve selected the trains I want and added them to my planner. Next I started trying to make my seat reservations.

First, the Prague to Zurich overnighter, has no seats available.

I looked at other connections but the times I want are not available either. E.g. the Monterosso to Milan train I wanted wasn’t available, so I gave up and tried something different.

Now I have just tried reserving seats on the Zurich to Dijon run. I couldn’t find it at all on the Eurail planner at all so I went to the OBB Scotty site, created an account, added myself and my wife with the Eurail Global discount and selected the day I wanted. I’m looking to book a seat on the 9:34 train so I can get to Dijon to pick up my hire car at about 12:00 - 12:30. This is what I get. Does this mean that I can’t book this trip either?

If you mean the one you mentioned here:

(9 May via Austria)

Then that is correct: there is just one through sleeper coach, no though coach with seats. If you want a seat, then you have to change in Linz. The sleeper can currently be booked until 18 February, on tickets.oebb.at and cd.cz, so you're too early for that.

Which train(s) on wich date? Would that be Monterosso - Milano Centrale - Fri, Apr 19 dep. 12:55 on 19 April, from one of your other threads? If that's the case, you're too early. It looks like reservations are currently only possible up to 18 February for this train. It's also highly unlikely that it's fully booked such a long, long time in advance.

ÖBB can't book any TGVs. Please use Seat61 as a guide for where to book reservations:

https://www.seat61.com/interrail-and-eurail-reservations.htm

If that doesn't work, then please mention route, date and departure time if you open a new discussion.

You can’t book seat reservations on ÖBB (Austrian Railways) for the SNCF (French railways). European unification brought us a lot, but not a quick and easy way to reserve seats on a train alas.

Use https://travel.b-europe.com/Eurail-GE/en/booking-tgv#TravelWish to resreve from Dijon to Mulhouse, and use the frequent, non-reservable local trains to Basel, from which you can hop on about every train to almost everywhere in Switzerland without seat reservation. (And it will save you a very expensive seat reservation on TGV Lyria)

You can find alternative and cheaper ways to reserve seats on this community page:

If you’re still confused, tell us the exact date, time, destination and for how many persons you’re trying to make seat reservations. You’ll have an answer in no time.

It all might seem complicated at first, but once you get the hang of it when you’re in Europe, I’m sure it’ll all go smoothly.

Thanks for your patience with me; my patience with me has run out. It seems to me that Eurail travel is not a good option for beginners and I am wondering if my efforts might be better spent seeing if I should go to option B, hire a car and drive the whole trip. 

My accommodation is all booked but until the travel is confirmed, I don’t know if I can make it to my accommodation as planned. It seems that many timetables have only been updated to mid Feb, so I need to book a few days off work later to get back into the booking mindset  to finish scheduling. But until I can confirm the early part of my trip, I’m reluctant to book the last part (e.g. Paris to London), as I may be better off forgetting about Prague and just spending longer in Zurich, Paris or London instead. But then, by the time I can confirm the early part, bookings for the last part may no longer be available forcing a change of accommodation anyway.

Or option C, is there a moderately priced service/travel agent I can use, someone “in the know”, who can monitor and do my bookings? 

Given options B & C are unlikely, I think I will take the advice offered above and raise a single question for each segment I am having trouble with and book all the ones I can now on the assumption that I will be able to find suitable seats sooner or later. 

Oh trains will definitely run, you can be sure of that. For most of them you can check timetables through DB even though booking hasn't opened yet (for example the Prague - Zurich night train).

Bookings generally open 3 months in advance with some exceptions. Plenty of people can live with that ! You can commit to accommodation without issues now. Book refundable rooms if you wish.

It wouldn't be different with regular tickets or Eurail. And no, definitely do not rent a car. You'll regret it. You don't want to pass for the stereotypical American/Australian... choose the better way to travel, the train ! You've even chosen a 1st class pass for a better experience.

Not that often people plan all little details 6 months in advance. They might have a rough idea sure.

You're too eager to get everything planned :)

Ok, I take your point. I will stick with it. 

It’s the other direction - Zurich to Dijon. Anyway, I think we discussed in a previous post and @Robsue decided to get the direct TGV and pay the reservation fee, rather than change at Basel and Mulhouse. I think this is a good idea. 

Yes, stick with it. You’ve done all the hard work. It’ll be worth it!

Agreed!  Yes, you're right that the spread of compulsory reservations and similar has on some routes and in some countries reduced the 'just jump on' pleasure of Interrail / Eurail - although reservations have always been needed for sleepers.  And yes, Eurostar is almost always a pain, in more ways than one!

However, when you're looking at countries like the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, these are the most passholder-friendly countries: virtually all non-sleeper trains are walk-up-and-go: on most fast trains, you *can* reserve a seat if you want to, but there's absolutely no need.  Some routes can get busy sometimes e.g. Berlin - Prague, but other than that there's no need at all to reserve.  

Have you therefore thought instead of doing Prague - Zürich by day instead?  Bear in mind that if you travel overnight you are sleeping through some of Europe's best scenery!   There are two main choices to do this:

- Prague to Munich (direct every 2 hours), then Munich to Zürich (also direct every 2 hours) - the connections aren't tight, but that's a good thing as German railways are not terribly punctual!

- Prague to Linz in Austria, changing in Linz, then direct through Innsbruck and over the Arlberg pass to Zürich - every 4 hours (in practice 2 viable ones a day) though slower options with more changes exist. 

None of these trains requires a reservation of any kind - just your valid Eurail!

Both do take all day (about 10-11 hours) but, especially in first class, should be a very pleasant way to spend the day seeing central Europe. 

For my part I would recommend the Linz route because (a) the scenery in my view is much more interesting for almost the entire route tthough the Munich route takes you around part of Lake Constance], and (b) Czech and Austrian railways are more reliable and punctual than German ones in general.  Also while both use comfortable carriages, arguably the ones on the Linz route slightly have the edge!

One last thing: if you do still want to do an overnight from Prague to Zürich, and you can't get a reservation on the direct train either because the one carriage that runs through is full, or you don't want a sleeper (it is a sleeper carriage), then there is another train which takes almost exactly the same time but goes a totally different route!   Rather than the 18:20 from Prague that you've looked at, you instead take the 18:28 train (no. EC 458) which goes through to Basel SBB, arriving 07:20.  From Basel to Zürich there are numerous comfortable trains (the Swiss are good at these things) taking a bit less than an hour.  While the overnight may well arrive late into Basel (it goes through a lot of Germany), this is no big deal as you just get on whatever train you want from Basel to Zürich.  You need a reservation for the overnight Prague to Basel, but not onward to Zürich, Swizterland being extremely Eurail-friendly. 

Hoping this is helpful and gives you some ideas to get the best use of the freedom that Eurail should give you!

PS If you're going in the other direction, one of the best daytime connections from Zürich has a first-class observation car (sortof like a 'dome car') as far as Innsbruck - very nice!

Thank you so much for those additional thoughts!

To be honest, I stopped thinking about a day trip, Prague to Zurich long ago but I will revisit the idea based on your suggestion. It would mean an extra night in either Prague or Zurich, which is easy to do, but I lose a day in one of those towns. I’ll have a talk to my wife about that. I love scenery, and sitting in first class for a day looking at scenery appeals to me. Not sure if she would agree. I have some time because the night jet is not ready to take bookings for a while.

Thanks again.

Good luck with your diplomacy offensive, then!  ;-)

We are looking seriously at your suggested train and wonder if this is the path you’re recommending:

06:21 PRAGUE HLAVNI NADRAZI (Czech Republic) 3h 45m EC 331 EuroCity 10:06 LINZ HBF (Austria)  

0h 39mChange trains

10:45 LINZ HBF (Austria) 6h 35m RJX 162 RJX railjet xpress 17:20 ZUERICH HB (Switzerland)

It would mean an early start, but otherwise quite manageable. 

Yes, that's right, if you don't mind an early start.  If (like me!) you do, then this is your option:

EC 333 Jižní expres
10:21 Praha hl.n.
14:06 Linz Hbf

rjx 166
14:45 Linz Hbf
21:20 Zürich HB

- so basically the same but four hours later (shame there isn't one halfway between, but there you go!). 

I'd say the scenery basically all the way is at least pleasant and at most stunning!

Oh, and the Eurocity train from Prague should have at least a bistro / buffet car, and the Railjet one on from Linz has a proper restaurant: recommended as one of the most civlised things to do while travelling, and not horrifically expensive at all. 

Have fun!

Mick

Thanks for the suggestion. We are waiting for the hotel to confirm pricing before making a final decision but the wife was surprisingly easy to agree. 

We have decided to do the day trip via Linz, as was recommended by Mick, so I wanted to make a reservation. I’ve made the selection but can’t see a button to save or send to my basket. How do I finalise this reservation?

Please ignore. I figured it out. How do I delete the last entry?