Is this Freiburg im Bresigau?

Reservations aren’t compulsory (at least not in May) unless you take the Eurostar from Cologne. Could you confirm which trains you’re hoping to take, and where you are reserving?

If you stick to IC and ICE trains, you can get the (optional) reservation €3 per train from ÖBB. Or for €4.90 (no matter how many trains) from DB.

Thanks for the answer. Yeah it’s Freiburg im Breisgau, this is one of the options I’m trying:

FREIBURG(BREISGAU) HBF (Germany) 09:55 AM
→ FRANKFURT(M) FLUGHAFEN FERNBF (Germany)12:06 PM
FRANKFURT(M) FLUGHAFEN FERNBF (Germany)12:42 PM
→ BRUXELLES-MIDI (Belgium)

It says reservation is not mandatory, I just wanted to make sure I have seats. Actually, if I don’t reserve seats I can’t “confirm” that trip in any way, how Interrail knows I’m using it or what I have to say in the station if I don’t have any kind of reservation?

There’s almost always seats available somewhere, even if you have to go and have a coffee in the restaurant car. But it’s certainly worthwhile considering for peace of mind.

On the DB website, run your query but select ‘book seat only’. You should see a bunch of results priced at €4.90, including your 0955 departure.

When I search, it suggests you change at Cologne/ Köln - which is a better idea than Frankfurt Airport anyway.

(Ignore anything that involves a leg on TGV or EST.)

Buy that, for €4.90, and you have your seat reservation.

You also need to add the trains to My Trip (assuming you have a mobile pass?) - that’s what generates the QR code which is your ticket. (The seat reservations on their own aren’t good for travel.)

By registering your journeys in the app.

As Frankfurt is the starting station of the ICE to Brussels, and you’re travelling alone or with two, I wouldn’t bother for reservations on a Tuesday in May.

Ok great, I’ll do that! I’m not using the app, I have Ticket reservations with QR for all the rest of my trips because all of them required seat reservation. Desktop and App doesn’t sync, so I should create a different trip in the app just for this train in particular?

It sounds like those are just seat reservations. They’re not the ticket.

You still need to add all your trains to My Trip to generate a ticket for each day you travel.

Ok, I’m on it. Adding all the travels in my app. It says “Seat reservation required”. They are already reserved in web, so I guess that’s enough even if that part doesnt appear in the app? I marked “use travel day”

Seat reservations are not linked to the rail planner app. They have to be made separately. Each train you take needs to be registered in the app. 

The first train of the day will trigger add a travel day, make sure do that only just before departure. 

Your app has the ticket (qr code and travel days) and functions as a sort of travel diary, so that Interrail /Eurail knows which rail company to reimburse.

Upon inspection on a train with mandatory seat reservations, show both the QR-code in the rail planner app and the reservation you made to travel correctly. Wether you print reservations on paper, or have them as a pdf, doesn't matter. 

Seems a bit complicated, but after one or two trains you will navigate smoothly and confidently through Europe. No need to stress :)

You can also familiarise yourself with the app via this webpage:

https://www.eurail.com/en/eurail-passes/eurail-mobile-pass/getting-started

Awesome, thank you very much to both of you, you’ve been very kind and helpful.

Perfect, just verified everything. Makes sense now.