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App prompting to activate a second travel day for a connecting train

  • 26 August 2022
  • 9 replies
  • 132 views
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I have booked one trip to Paris from Berlin that takes to connecting trains and leaves in the evening arriving in the morning. It was all part of just one journey, seat reservations showed as one and it is prompted as a single connection.
Now the app asks me to activate both trains separately as two travel days although I am travelling less than 24h.

Furthermore my outbound ticket is now fixed to the inner country trip from Germany town to German town before departing to Paris. This seems like it might be an issue although it clearly is inside of Germany, wondering why it even allows the option.

Please help dear community!

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Best answer by AnnaB 26 August 2022, 12:38

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A travel day is 00.00-23.59 CE(S)T. During a travel day you can board as many trains as you like. If you board a train before midnight you can stay on that train over midnight without using a new travel day. If you board a new train on the arrival day of the night train, then that's a new travel day.

The outbound/inbound rule allows you to travel on a maximum of two travel days in your country of residence. 

 

What are the departure times of the trains on your travel from Paris to Berlin?

Please note that I don't work for Interrail/Eurail and that I don't reply to personal messages.
E


Thank you for the quick response, highly appreciated.

I’m leaving Berlin at 9pm today and arriving at Offenburg (still Germany) at a quarter to six in the morning tomorrow. Then I have a connecting train in the same trip to Paris crossing the border.

My outbound is marked for the first journey to Offenburg which seems like a mistake right?

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Thank you for the quick response, highly appreciated.

I’m leaving Berlin at 9pm today and arriving at Offenburg (still Germany) at a quarter to six in the morning tomorrow. Then I have a connecting train in the same trip to Paris crossing the border.

My outbound is marked for the first journey to Offenburg which seems like a mistake right?

No. That is exactly how it works. The journey you are planning will use 2 travel days and both home country days as you will take trains in Germany on 2 days.

There is nothing that can be done about using 2 travel days but by staying on that train to Basel SBB or by buying a separate ticket for another cross-border train from Offenberg as well as deleting any trains in Germany for tomorrow in your app you can still save your second (inbound) home country day.

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IF you are short on traveldays and IF you aso have not invested deeply in RES etc for expensive overtheborder rides: check from what station the Night ICE dep. Berlin FTER 0.00 to Köln , change there to Aachen-Welkenraedt -Brussel (direct ICE K->B will be cancelled anyway), can even do whole ride without RES-and very careful planning and many changes.

Other wise; as 9€ in DE still valid till 31/8 (I ride on it ow in a very shaky Abellio trainlet) use that to best means to cover trip till just >0.00

E


Thank you for the quick response, highly appreciated.

I’m leaving Berlin at 9pm today and arriving at Offenburg (still Germany) at a quarter to six in the morning tomorrow. Then I have a connecting train in the same trip to Paris crossing the border.

My outbound is marked for the first journey to Offenburg which seems like a mistake right?

No. That is exactly how it works. The journey you are planning will use 2 travel days and both home country days as you will take trains in Germany on 2 days.

There is nothing that can be done about using 2 travel days but by staying on that train to Basel SBB or by buying a separate ticket for another cross-border train from Offenberg as well as deleting any trains in Germany for tomorrow in your app you can still save your second (inbound) home country day.


Thank you as well for the reply.

I do have some trouble understanding how my outbound ticket is meant for a trip from one home country town to the next. Would it not be logical to have it activated for the train ride that crosses the border to another country?
Like how would my inbound ticket be used for the connection getting me out of the country?

Thanks for clarification as the interrail system appears to be very unclear.
 

A
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +3


Thank you for the quick response, highly appreciated.

I’m leaving Berlin at 9pm today and arriving at Offenburg (still Germany) at a quarter to six in the morning tomorrow. Then I have a connecting train in the same trip to Paris crossing the border.

My outbound is marked for the first journey to Offenburg which seems like a mistake right?

No. That is exactly how it works. The journey you are planning will use 2 travel days and both home country days as you will take trains in Germany on 2 days.

There is nothing that can be done about using 2 travel days but by staying on that train to Basel SBB or by buying a separate ticket for another cross-border train from Offenberg as well as deleting any trains in Germany for tomorrow in your app you can still save your second (inbound) home country day.


Thank you as well for the reply.

I do have some trouble understanding how my outbound ticket is meant for a trip from one home country town to the next. Would it not be logical to have it activated for the train ride that crosses the border to another country?
Like how would my inbound ticket be used for the connection getting me out of the country?

Thanks for clarification as the interrail system appears to be very unclear.
 

The purpose of the inbound/outbound days is to allow travel from your home to the rest of Europe.

The implementation for mobile passes is that ANY travel in your home country on a day will mark that day as home country and take up 1 of your 2 allocations.

In practice it means you can travel all day in your home country before leaving but this must be done with the last train you board in your home country departing before midnight.

 

The issue you are having is that you are starting quite late from Berlin. You could choose to use the pass for the cross-border train from Offenburg but you would then have to pay for the trip from Berlin separately as it is being taken on the previous day.

E


Thank you for the quick response, highly appreciated.

I’m leaving Berlin at 9pm today and arriving at Offenburg (still Germany) at a quarter to six in the morning tomorrow. Then I have a connecting train in the same trip to Paris crossing the border.

My outbound is marked for the first journey to Offenburg which seems like a mistake right?

No. That is exactly how it works. The journey you are planning will use 2 travel days and both home country days as you will take trains in Germany on 2 days.

There is nothing that can be done about using 2 travel days but by staying on that train to Basel SBB or by buying a separate ticket for another cross-border train from Offenberg as well as deleting any trains in Germany for tomorrow in your app you can still save your second (inbound) home country day.


Thank you as well for the reply.

I do have some trouble understanding how my outbound ticket is meant for a trip from one home country town to the next. Would it not be logical to have it activated for the train ride that crosses the border to another country?
Like how would my inbound ticket be used for the connection getting me out of the country?

Thanks for clarification as the interrail system appears to be very unclear.
 

The purpose of the inbound/outbound days is to allow travel from your home to the rest of Europe.

The implementation for mobile passes is that ANY travel in your home country on a day will mark that day as home country and take up 1 of your 2 allocations.

In practice it means you can travel all day in your home country before leaving but this must be done with the last train you board in your home country departing before midnight.

 

The issue you are having is that you are starting quite late from Berlin. You could choose to use the pass for the cross-border train from Offenburg but you would then have to pay for the trip from Berlin separately as it is being taken on the previous day.

That does make it more clear, thank you.
Now my issue is that the outbound is already set to the Berlin-Offenburg trip which I want to swap to the Offenburg-Paris trip. This option is unavailable to me as it is same-day planning.
Can you please advise as to how I can manage to make the change? (Contacting support has sadly not provided an answer yet due to high demand I guess)
 

The trip to Offenburg would be covered by my 9€ ticket anyways but is now set in-app to 1 day travel AND outbound ticket wasting me heaps.

Appreciated!

A
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +3


Thank you for the quick response, highly appreciated.

I’m leaving Berlin at 9pm today and arriving at Offenburg (still Germany) at a quarter to six in the morning tomorrow. Then I have a connecting train in the same trip to Paris crossing the border.

My outbound is marked for the first journey to Offenburg which seems like a mistake right?

No. That is exactly how it works. The journey you are planning will use 2 travel days and both home country days as you will take trains in Germany on 2 days.

There is nothing that can be done about using 2 travel days but by staying on that train to Basel SBB or by buying a separate ticket for another cross-border train from Offenberg as well as deleting any trains in Germany for tomorrow in your app you can still save your second (inbound) home country day.


Thank you as well for the reply.

I do have some trouble understanding how my outbound ticket is meant for a trip from one home country town to the next. Would it not be logical to have it activated for the train ride that crosses the border to another country?
Like how would my inbound ticket be used for the connection getting me out of the country?

Thanks for clarification as the interrail system appears to be very unclear.
 

The purpose of the inbound/outbound days is to allow travel from your home to the rest of Europe.

The implementation for mobile passes is that ANY travel in your home country on a day will mark that day as home country and take up 1 of your 2 allocations.

In practice it means you can travel all day in your home country before leaving but this must be done with the last train you board in your home country departing before midnight.

 

The issue you are having is that you are starting quite late from Berlin. You could choose to use the pass for the cross-border train from Offenburg but you would then have to pay for the trip from Berlin separately as it is being taken on the previous day.

That does make it more clear, thank you.
Now my issue is that the outbound is already set to the Berlin-Offenburg trip which I want to swap to the Offenburg-Paris trip. This option is unavailable to me as it is same-day planning.
Can you please advise as to how I can manage to make the change? (Contacting support has sadly not provided an answer yet due to high demand I guess)
 

The trip to Offenburg would be covered by my 9€ ticket anyways but is now set in-app to 1 day travel AND outbound ticket wasting me heaps.

Appreciated!

Berlin - Offenburg would not be valid with €9 German ticket, at least not on the direct train you are catching. €9 ticket is not valid on IC trains, it would take a very long time on only Regional/interregional trains, so that option is not possible either.

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You just delete the journey from Berlin to Offenburg in your Trip.

The advice from the experience travellers is also to wait with activating the travel days until just before boarding the first train of the day. Please read more about this below.

 

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, 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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