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I want to purchase travel to about 8 countires in 30 days - I’m not sure what days i’ll be travelling as i’m leaving my trip open - If i purchase the 10 days in 2 months, do I then have to BOOK the days i’ll be using the trains? Or is it flexible via the app or trainstations and I can rock up and select it on the day I want to get the train?

 

EDIT: I’m just wondering if thats possible, if I have to book I might be better off spending the extra $300 AUD for the 30 days continuous to keep my trip open? any help in the next few hours before I buy it would be super appreciated!

Some trains, like night trains, the Eurostar, high speed trains  (not in Germany) and IC trains in Sweden have mandatory reservation and popular departures, especially on the Eurostar, sell out weeks in advance.

If you choose to travel on trains without mandatory reservation, you can just decide in the morning that you want to travel that day. In countries like Switzerland, reservations are optional, apart from some scenic tourist trains, and no one makes reservations are the trains run so often. 

During high season it can be wise to make a reservation even if if is not mandatory just to be sure to get a seat.

 

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 ticket in addition to the fee for the seat reservation.

 

Activation of pass

During the activation process, when you choose the start day of the validity of the pass, the first day of the validity period is automatically made a travel day, even if you don't enter a journey, the advice is therefore not to activate the pass before the first travel day as you only can deactivate the pass before 00.00 on the day the validity starts. If your travel plans change in the last moment you will loose travel days if you have activated the pass in advance.

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, 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.

It all depends-as could have been expected.

IF you want to make preset plans, like most unexperienced newbees tend to do-and hence also book HTL etc in advance, then its also best to REServe (book) trains-IF needed-often this is not, but it again depends on route/country/type of train- to simply count nr of days you travel by train long distance. But as such the traveldays on pass do NOT need to be set before buying-you can decide on the day itself (but as most newbees also tend to want to use exactly those routes that require hard to get REServ this is often not very realistic) and add the trips.

The 10 days you can use spread over 2 monthes-but 1 month is continuous: from day X till day X-1 in next month=not 2 monthes.

If you also want to have freedom of making spontaneous trips and you like trains, then a continu pass may be more worthwhile. I see youre from down yundah-so in case f.e. you would like to see the old island in the NorthSea (GB) a lot-there is perfectly possible to decide on the whim of the moment as trains do not have mandatory REServ. But in FRance/ESpana this will be quite hard.

Some trains, like night trains, the Eurostar, high speed trains  (not in Germany) and IC trains in Sweden have mandatory reservation and popular departures, especially on the Eurostar, sell out weeks in advance.

If you choose to travel on trains without mandatory reservation, you can just decide in the morning that you want to travel that day. In countries like Switzerland, reservations are optional, apart from some scenic tourist trains, and no one makes reservations are the trains run so often. 

During high season it can be wise to make a reservation even if if is not mandatory just to be sure to get a seat.

 

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 ticket in addition to the fee for the seat reservation.

 

Activation of pass

During the activation process, when you choose the start day of the validity of the pass, the first day of the validity period is automatically made a travel day, even if you don't enter a journey, the advice is therefore not to activate the pass before the first travel day as you only can deactivate the pass before 00.00 on the day the validity starts. If your travel plans change in the last moment you will loose travel days if you have activated the pass in advance.

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, 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.

Ahh that makes a-lot of sense! Thank you so much. I will get the 10 days in 2 months then and just plan on the day, maybe pre book my big train trips if need be.

I’m happy to make a new topic but thought i’d just ask to see if you know off the top of your head as well - I will be travelling from Barcellona to La Spezia, La Spezia to Florence, Florence to Rome, Rome to Venice, Venice to Paris and Paris to London over the course of about 3 weeks - Do you reckon I should pre book these or just jumping on should be fine? I know the Barcelona to La Spezia and Venice to Paris are quite long trips which might be reservation/faster trains?

 

I’m happy to make a new topic but thought i’d just ask to see if you know off the top of your head as well - I will be travelling from Barcellona to La Spezia, La Spezia to Florence, Florence to Rome, Rome to Venice, Venice to Paris and Paris to London over the course of about 3 weeks - Do you reckon I should pre book these or just jumping on should be fine? I know the Barcelona to La Spezia and Venice to Paris are quite long trips which might be reservation/faster trains?

TGV/AVE from Barcelona should be booked as soon as you know when you'll be travelling because it has limited seats available. The same for TGV from Milan to Paris. You can book those by phone via SNCF (press #85 for English).

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