As long as child is under 12 on the first day of use the child pass remains valid for the duration of it’s use.

Whether it will work just by activating but not using the pass on that day I don’t know, it does state travel not pass activate in the terms but it is possibly a scenario not envisaged.

The pass does not record whether you travelled on the train, so simply add a fictitious train in any non-home country to the first travel day would work, rather than leave it blank.

Thanks both. I’ve not used a mobile pass previously! As I understand it, when you activate your pass you set a start date. You have until midnight prior to the start day to change it, but once the day has started it is used out of your quota of days on a global pass. I just want clarification on whether a journey needs adding also. I’m assuming this isn’t essential. I did wonder whether to add a fictitious journey in another country too!

Without further clarification, I might try starting the pass a few days before my child turns 12 but not add a journey. If the following day the remaining days goes down then that should have worked! If not, I’ll add a fictitious journey the next day to ensure that starts the pass. Nevertheless, I have a good few months before the travel, so will hopefully get further clarification before then. But I do want to book some reservations against the pass very soon, so would like the clarification soon if someone can!

Thanks!

Do you have a continuous pass or a flexi pass? The handling of this is a bit different depending on the type of pass you have.

The first day is automatically added as a pass day once you activate, you can remove this manually while keeping the pass active.

It is not necessary to activate passes in order to obtain reservations.

They’re flexi passes, hence I’m after clarification since we can only really afford to sacrifice one day but ideally would rather not lose one! Nevertheless, the saving of using the free child pass over having to buy a youth pass now would be great. As all travel will still be within the pass period if starting a couple of days before their 12th birthday I think everything will technically be above board! If child passes are started before the 12th birthday they’re valid for their duration even if they turn 12 before they expire. It’s just our trip unfortunately can no longer start before they turn 12, but I could start the pass before then and we’d still complete our trip before the pass expires and still have sufficient pass days but no contingency if using one day on the start day!

Here’s my proposed scenario:

7 days in month global pass

Day 1: Pass day 1 - no travel (pass started)

Day 3: Two days later turn 12

Day 15: Pass day 2 - travel (inc home country)

Day 16: Pass day 3 - travel

Day 19: Pass day 4 - travel

Day 20: Pass day 5 - travel

Day 22: Pass day 6 - travel

Day 25: Pass day 7 (inc home country)

Day 1 with no travel but pass started that day. Could add a fictitious journey in another country though! And as per my initial post, only book this for the child in question - all others retain this as a contingency day on their passes with day 15 as above being their start day instead. So no accompanying adult would need to start their pass on day 1 - but on day 15 as laid out above.

Regarding reservations, I know the pass doesn’t need to be active, but just don’t want to link the reservation to the pass and then end up having to buy a youth pass instead - which I think will be unlikely but just hoping for some clarification!

Thanks all for your responses!

Reservations are straightforward - they are never linked to a specific pass, so as long as you have some form of ticket for each passenger on the day of travel, the reservations remain valid and new ones are not required.

Even for Eurostar??

That seems eminently doable since if you do need to use your spare day you would only need to buy a ticket for the 12 year old. You could always buy him a ticket for the cheapest travel day so restoring his contingency day.

Reservations are not linked to your pass so you don't have to worry about that. 

What you do to get this working is that you activate the child's pass and the adult pass with a start date before the child's 12th birthday.  You must do this at least the day before the start date you choose. Then you immediately  go to "my Trip" and delete the travel day that was automatically created. When you delete the travel day you will get the question if you want to deactivate the pass. Then you should answer "No" to keep the pass active but with no active travel day. This must be done for both the child's pass and the adult's pass.

Thanks! Having checked the conditions of use, that seems a reasonable approach. According to Section 1 Clause 4.1 of the CoU a pass is valid if start and end dates are defined. Based on your explanation above, activation seems to define the start (and therefore end) dates. Under Section 1 Clause 3.3 a child must be 11 on the first day their pass is valid. So my understanding is that validity for a mobile pass is when the pass is activated and not the first travel day - which can be a later date than the the start date if required as I will need to do following your guidance above!

The child has to be under 12 on the first day of the validity of the pass. That is the only thing that matters. 

Yes - thanks! I just wasn’t clear what the first day of validity is for a mobile pass. In the Conditions of use, the term validity is used without being clearly defined. From your understanding, validity commences when the pass is activated which can be before the first travel day. So we can do that.

Would be great to have some more official confirmation - either from Interrail or someone who’s done this!

The CoU are the most official confirmation you can get.

After activating the pass, it will show the “validity period”, which will start on the chosen start date. I think that should be clear enough.

This has been marked as an answer but does not really provide clarity on whether the ‘first day of use’ is the day the pass becomes active or the first travel day. Based on AnnaB’s response it is the day the mobile pass becomes activated. However, a travel day will be created for this day by default but can be removed if not required, but the pass activation (and validity) retained as commencing on this day. The first travel day can then be a later date.

This approach seems entirely reasonable and is consistent with the paper passes, where the validity period for flexi passes is defined on purchase but the first day of travel does not have to be the same as the first day of validity - but can be a later date if desired. In the case of age restrictions on child and youth passes, this is at least one reason why such an approach may be taken.

@Al_G Your use of the wording “first day of use” is confusing. The child must be under 12 when the validity of the pass starts. It doesn’t matter when you start your travel. The start date of the validity you choose when you activate your pass.

Activation of a mobile pass and the start date of the validity of the pass are separate. You can have an active pass where the validity of the pass hasn’t started. This is not recommended though, but possible.

I quotes ‘first day of use’ from your last response and agree this is ambiguous! As per my previous response, I understand activation of the mobile pass to commence validity and this aligns with the paper pass where a pass becomes valid on the date nominated. In both cases I expect that the first travel day can be later. So for me the flexi pass can become valid before the child turns 12 but the first day of travel is actually after.

Yes.

As you have a flexi pass you should delete the travel day that automatically is created on the first day of the validity period to avoid loosing a travel day. If you get problem with this, please ask in the Community how to do.

Yes, it is ambiguous. It is also exactly how it was worded on the section of the Interrail site I looked at.

The likelihood is that what is being proposed (validating the pass and removing the first day as a travel day) will work but until it is tried I cannot say 100% that the mobile pass will work correctly.

We have seen all manner of weirdness from the programming of these, such as altering applied dates due to user’s timezones or calendars being different.

It is a situation where buying and activating the pass well in advance to make sure it will do what you want would be a good idea, leaving enough time to deal with it if it is a problem.