Skip to main content

Hi everyone, 

I’m sorry if the question has already been asked but I couldn’t find an answer. I am planning a trip in central Europe and I already scheduled it. I would like to understand if what I thought of doing is possible:

  • Travel day 1 - I would take a train from Turin, Italy (my hometown) to Bern, Switzerland (I will stay there for some hours) and then, in the same day, to Paris, France.
  • Travel day 2 - after some days in Paris I would take a couple of trains to go to Bruges, Belgium.
  • After that the next stops are Gent and Brussels, but I planned to buy tickets by myself and not include them in my pass, because they are cheap tickets and I wouldn't like to add travel days because it wouldn’t be convenient.
  • Travel day 3 - at this point I would restart the journey from Brussels to Berlin (the last station in which I used my pass will be Bruges, is it against the rules? - I mean, it will be clear I traveled to Brussels not using the pass…).
  • etc.

My doubt is about “skipping” travel days by booking independently some train tickets and not counting them on the pass. Is it something allowed? Can I decide which is a travel day and which not?

Yes. There is no restriction on how or when you use a pass, break it up how ever you like. Not using it on a day when you can buy local tickets cheaper than a pass day is sensible.

Yes. There is no restriction on how or when you use a pass, break it up how ever you like. Not using it on a day when you can buy local tickets cheaper than a pass day is sensible.

 

Thank you a lot! One last question: if I decide to purchase a mobile pass, in the Rail Planner app do I have to associate the pass with a trip in which I only list the trains I will take (Option A) or I can leave the ones I will book independently (Option 😎 The screenshots are from the part of trip I talked about earlier:

Option A
Option B

 

Thanks in advance! :)

The Trip should include the trains where you use the Interrail pass. 

Only add those you are using the pass for, if you include other trains you will use up a travel day on the pass you are already buying other tickets for.

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.

Thanks to everyone for clarifying my doubts! 😊

In BE/NMBS has special quite cheap offers for ju/senior. For JUnior <26 (not the 28 of the pass!!) it is called GO-Pass, a single is then a little more as 7€-for any distance (but you still have to order a ticket for A to B-it is not a network pass). For senior it is same price for a day RETurn-but only >9.00 on mo-fr.

There are also 10-ride passes for junior and in the holidays for 7 days or all time-but that needs much more planning and a chipcard with it

Reply


Terms and Conditions & Privacy Policy