Once I get the euro pass is there where to test the pass without activating / wasting 1 travel date ?
Best answer by Yorkie
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As long as you test in advance of your planned travel date you can activate your pass with a date in the future and add travel days etc.
You then cancel those travel plans and deactivate your pass until the day you travel.
You can cancel travel days up to 2359 CET the previous day, but after that you will lose that day if you then do not travel. Hence the regular advice not to activate the pass until you know your first train is happening. The same advice for future travel days, do not start a travel day by transferring a journey from your pass until the day you know you are travelling.
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, 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 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.
Thanks Yorkie.
Just to confirm i thinking of purchasing the ticket tomorrow and my buying the 7 days in 1 month pass and my travel dates are between 5/10 -21/10. Are you suggesting that I add a trip to test for some day after 21/10 ?
Not necessay to go that far.
Simply load your pass as per instructions and create your trip. You do not need to activate your pass at this stage.
Then add a journey to your trip for a date a few days in the future.
Now activate your pass for that date. It will create a travel dayl for that date.
Now you add the journey to your pass by moving the slider.
If all is well you should now open your pass and see if it shows the journey.
If it shows all is well.
Back to your trip and deactivate the slider.
Then delete the travel day and deactivate your pass.
This must be done at least one full day efore your planned start date
Then only use the planner and trip functions until you start travelling.
- Eurail Moderator
- 271 replies
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26 September 2022
The video on this page might be useful as it explains pass activation and set up step by step.
I just noticed below on the website re activation. Do I need to go to a train station in person to activate this if I dont eurorail to activate when ordering given I am not 100% sure the days I am travelling ? Is there another options
You can get your pass activated at a European train station, or when you place your order at Eurail.com/ Interrail.eu. This service is always free of charge.
1. Activate your Eurail Pass for free at a European train station.
To do this, simply go to the ticket office of any large train station in one of the participating Eurail countries. A railway official will then activate your Eurail Pass by filling in the start and end date of your Pass, as well as your passport number. They will also stamp the Pass in order to validate it.
2. Get your Eurail/ Interrail Pass activated for free when you place your order at Eurail.com/ Interrail.com.
We can activate your Eurail/ Interrail Pass before you receive it. If you use this service your Eurail/ Interrail Pass will arrive pre-activated. This option is useful if you already know the exact dates you're going to travel. Simply select the 'activate my pass' option, and pick the starting date of your trip.
You can only activate your pass online at the time of booking. Please note that we'll ask you to fill in your passport number. If you're not yet in possession of the passport you'll be traveling to Europe with, you can't make use of pre-activation.
I believe this is relating to paper passes.
Mobile passes are activated and deactivated as detailed above by you at your leisure,
As before please trial to your own satisfaction but always several days ahead of any trial trains you add. You cannot deactivate a current travel day once created.
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