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I have bought two passes (for me and a friend) on one interrail account. Do you need to link these accounts to make seat reservations together, if so how? Is it better to have the tickets on the same or separate devices? 

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.


Yes, you can reserve also via the website, the app shows the website and sends you a reservation via email (except a few trains where you get it via postal mail). 

Check also where you can book Reservations, avoiding interrail.eu (they charge 2 EUR on top of the reservation fee). 

Interrail writes every time that you have to print the reservations. In most cases it is OK to show it as PDF on the phone, but the rule says to print them. Very important is it to print reservations for nighttrains, because they collect the tickets/reservations for a later check. They can’t take your phone with you. 

 


Thank you! 

Just to double check - put our individual pass on each of our phones, then one phone makes two reservations for a journey. Then when tickets are checked one person would show their pass and two reservations and the other would just show their ticket? 

 
Just a try to make it clear. 

Yes you can book the reservations but note reservations will never show up in your App as these are 100% seperate usually you get a PDF (few reservations are still issued as paperreservation and have to be shipped). 

So usually everyone could show his own reservation and pass from it´s own device. My suggestion is to have the passes seperated you never know what happens and you may have to travel parts not together (Not enough seats on a train, somebody gets ill). 
Have atleast one Powerbank with you as not all trains in Europe have PowerPlugs. (I personally have powerbank with a small solar panel) 


Thank you! 

Just to double check - put our individual pass on each of our phones, then one phone makes two reservations for a journey. Then when tickets are checked one person would show their pass and two reservations and the other would just show their ticket? 


You only need one pass to apply for multiple reservations. 

Reservations are not linked to specific passes, but can be sometimes linked to specific passenger names. As long as you present 2 passes and 2 reservations you are OK.

Most reservation tools merely want either a declaration that you have a valid pass (e.g. Eurostar via dedicated B-europe site) or a pass cover number to show you have a pass.

 

As to the question on whether on one device or two - that is a matter of personal choice. If you are always going to travel together then one or 2 is fine, if you may travel separately then 2 devices.


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