We purchased (2) 1st class Eurail passes. When I made reservations I was charged 1st class upgrades. I would have thought that when making reservations it would have recognized that we have first class passes already. Options?
Answer
First Class Rail Passes - Reservations
Best answer by Al_G
Those aren’t upgrades, they are reservation fees.
It is the same price for a 1st class or 2nd class reservation but only 1st class pass holders can make a 1st class reservation, you are also offered 2nd class as a 1st class pass is always valid in 2nd class as well.
Reservations are not required on Dutch or German trains, you can just turn up and take any unreserved seat without paying any extra.
1st class reservations for passholders can be made at the site of Austrian railways OBB www.oebb.at for free by adding interrail/eurail as a discount for each passenger and searching for day tickets NOT reservation only.
For details on many other better sources of reservations read this thread
Also, please read this part of the seat61 website, it explains pass use and reservations in detail. https://www.seat61.com/how-to-use-a-eurail-pass.htm
You need to provide more information; what trains you reserved, where you purchased these reservations and how much they cost.
You always need to select which class you want to make a reservation for. The places where you make reservations doesn't know what type of pass you have.
Community,
I’ve attached the pass info from the Eurail website showing 2 1st class passes. I also attached our ticket info for our trip from Amsterdam to Berlin showing $17.44 for 1st class passage. Both the Eurail passes and reservation were purchased on-line on the Eurail website.
Thank you,
Those aren’t upgrades, they are reservation fees.
It is the same price for a 1st class or 2nd class reservation but only 1st class pass holders can make a 1st class reservation, you are also offered 2nd class as a 1st class pass is always valid in 2nd class as well.
Reservations are not required on Dutch or German trains, you can just turn up and take any unreserved seat without paying any extra.
1st class reservations for passholders can be made at the site of Austrian railways OBB www.oebb.at for free by adding interrail/eurail as a discount for each passenger and searching for day tickets NOT reservation only.
For details on many other better sources of reservations read this thread
Also, please read this part of the seat61 website, it explains pass use and reservations in detail. https://www.seat61.com/how-to-use-a-eurail-pass.htm
The recommendation from the experienced travellers in the community is to only make reservations through the Eurail website if no other options are available. Please read more about that below.
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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