Children aged 4-11 on their first day of travel can get a free Child Pass

https://www.interrail.eu/en/interrail-passes/deals/free-travel-kids

Means all good you just have to start before the 12th Birthday.

Hi I just saw this thread and it made me wonder, We plan to travel 2 weeks after my childs 12 th birthday for 3 weeks. If we got a 2 month pass and took a train in our own country to start the 2 months before the childs 12th birthday(giving a free pass then start the trip properly 2weeks later is that considered ok?

That should be OK. Although you would already use an inbound/outbound trip if you register a journey in your country of residence. Therefore, it's probably better to register a journey in another country on the day before your child turns 12.

Thats not really possible. As the first country we travel to is quite a way(Finland to Sweden) I was thinking if we registered an outbound trip just to another random journey in Finland, then take the hit for the trip to actually start the trip 2 weeks later. A 2 month unlimited ticket is pretty much the same price as if we order a 15 days in 2 months trip if we did that.

We can get cheap tickets within Finland if booked early enough so then it would give us unlimited when we actually start the holiday.

Is this possible? If we activate and use a trip in our own country 2 weeks before travelling?

To be clear , I mean is it ok to start a pass with the outbound and then not leave the country for 2 weeks?

You can use the outbound trip if you like but you don't have to. You can register any trip anywhere on the first day of validity.

Oh. I thought I read that you can only use two trips in your home country. Outbound and inbound.

Yes you can indeed only use 2. But they don't need to be at the beginning and the end. You can use them whenever you like. So if you need them both, then do not register the "ghost journey” in your own country. Your journeys don't have to connect with each other, so just register a random one somewhere outside of your country.

Wouldn't that mean being outside my own country before the 12th birthday of my child?

To register the start of my travel pass?

Apologies, that I  don't understand.I am new to this and appreciate the help.

Not really.

As far as I understand, the only requirement is that on the first travel day your child is still 11 years old. Maybe it's already enough to let the validity period start but it doesn’t hurt to also add a journey on that first travel day. Since you're not physically going to use that travel day, I’d suggest to register a journey that does not use an inbound/outbound journey, so register a journey outside your own country. Nobody will care you didn’t really travel.