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Using my trips on Rail Planner app

  • 22 July 2023
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I bought 4 days Eurail pass, and I haven’t used it yet. I added my possible trips on Rail Planner app as follows since I haven’t decided what time I will leave Strasbourg, either 08:21(red) or 08:51 (blue), and what time I will leave Colmar, either at 13:53 or 15:53. 
My question is this:
1. Can I choose one of the times (between red and blue) right before the train time? If I choose red time slot, then what happens to the blue time slot? All those possible trips I added is on the same day.
2. How far ahead should I add my trip on the Rail Planner app. Is it okay to add my trip just before the train time? (For instance, even like 5 minutes ahead is okay?
3. What should I do with the yellow hightlighted area? If I activate one of those things, and do not use the others, what happens?
4. I haven’t used Eurail pass before. So I don’t exactly know how to use it. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. 

Thank you very much in advance.

 

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Best answer by AnnaB 22 July 2023, 15:07

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You can and should only activate the trains you are taking shortly before travelling when you are sure which one you are taking.

 

You do this by sliding the switch you have highlighted, it will turn yellow and add that train to your pass, if for any reason you alter your plans you can always deactivate a train and activate another one.

 

Once a day is active and has begun (so any time after midnight on a day) you can not deactivate the day but you can activate and deactivate individual trains.

 

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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.  

Please note that I don't work for Interrail/Eurail and that I don't reply to personal messages.
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Thank you very much.

  1. When you say, “You do this by sliding the switch you have highlighted, it will turn yellow and add that train to your pass.” Does that mean If I slide the switch, it will turn yellow and AUTOMATICALLY add that train to my pass?? Or should I do something to add that trian to my pass?
  2. You said, “Once a day is active and has begun, you can not deactivate the day.” How a day is active? If I slide the switch and I ride on a train, then is the day AUTOMATICALLY active? What if I slide the switch but I do not ride on a train? Is the day still active, and counted as 1 day used?

    Thank you in advance.
    ​​​​​​​
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Thank you very much.

  1. When you say, “You do this by sliding the switch you have highlighted, it will turn yellow and add that train to your pass.” Does that mean If I slide the switch, it will turn yellow and AUTOMATICALLY add that train to my pass?? Or should I do something to add that trian to my pass?
  2. You said, “Once a day is active and has begun, you can not deactivate the day.” How a day is active? If I slide the switch and I ride on a train, then is the day AUTOMATICALLY active? What if I slide the switch but I do not ride on a train? Is the day still active, and counted as 1 day used?

    Thank you in advance.
    ​​​​​​​

1. Yes, activating a train is all that is needed.

 

2. Once you activate any train for a specific day it set as a pass day, you can deactivate it until 23.59 on the previous day. Once an active day is in progress you cannot delete it even if you choose to not travel, that is why it is advised to not activate until you are 100% sure you will travel.

Your travelling on any particular train or not has no effect as there is no way for that to be known to the app.

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“Once a day is active and has begun, you can not deactivate the day.” How a day is active? If I slide the switch and I ride on a train, then is the day AUTOMATICALLY active? What if I slide the switch but I do not ride on a train? Is the day still active, and counted as 1 day used?

 

Scenario (1)

Today is Saturday and you create a trip for Monday evening, but don’t slide the switch.  No day is used, your pass isn't impacted.

Then it’s Sunday and you don’t change anything - again, no day is used.

Then it’s Monday morning - because you haven’t slid the switch no day is used, but equally you can’t get on the train because you haven’t activated your trip for that day.

Then it’s Monday afternoon and you slide the switch - now a day is used, now you can take the train.  The very important thing to remember is that because today is Monday and you had an active trip for Monday you have used up a day, whether or not you get on that train.  You cannot get that day back, but you can now take as many trains as you want that day.

Scenario (2)

Today is Saturday and you create a trip for Monday evening, but don’t slide the switch.  No day is used, your pass isn't impacted.

Then it’s Sunday and you do slide the switch - your pass is activated for Monday and you can get on the train on Monday, but not on Sunday.

Then it’s Sunday evening and you decide that you are not going to travel on Monday so you slide the switch back to off.  Your pass isn’t activated, you haven’t used a day for Monday and you cannot get on a train on Monday.

Scenario (3)

Today is Saturday and you create a trip for Monday evening, but don’t slide the switch.  No day is used, your pass isn't impacted.

Then it’s Sunday and you do slide the switch - your pass is activated for Monday and you can get on the train on Monday, but not on Sunday.

You have a few drinks on Sunday night, decide you aren’t going to travel on Monday, but do not slide the switch back to off.  As Sunday turns into Monday your pass sees there is an active journey for the day and *boom* you have accidentally used a day.

 

Scenario 3 is why people advise not to activate a days travel until the actual day has rolled around and you are definitely going to take a train that day.

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How far ahead should I add my trip on the Rail Planner app. Is it okay to add my trip just before the train time? (For instance, even like 5 minutes ahead is okay?

I normally put in trips that I had seat reservations for as I was *reasonably* certain I would be getting those trains.  It can save time and (minimal) hassle on the day if you just need to slide the switch.

For the likes of Strasbourg-Colmar (which I think is a relatively frequent route) I would put in both like you have done above and then if I made it for the first train I would slide the switch for that one and delete the second one.  There’s no harm in having multiple ones entered - they don’t do anything until you activate them.

If you try to activate your second trip to Luzerne while you are on the first train to Luzerne you will get a warning that you can’t be on two different trains at the same time.  No harm done.  You are already on the first so you don’t need to activate the second.

The pass only considers overlapping times, but doesn't consider geographical differences.  So, you could have a trip leaving Berlin at 0900 and arriving somewhere at 0930, and another one leaving Milan at 0931 and arriving somewhere at 1000 without issue.

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