Difficulties booking a seat place in an already booked train

  • 10 January 2023
  • 6 replies
  • 82 views

Bonjour, Je me permets de vous contacter suite à l’impossibilité de réserver une place assise dans mon train Budapest-Krakow du 6/04/2023 à 19h29. Effectivement, j’ai sélectionné ce train pour mon interrail dans l’application associée, j’ai le QR code du train dans mon dossier de voyage mais je ne peux pas réserver de place assise… J’ai essayé sur le site interrail mais aussi sur celui de ÖBB et il est marqué que les places assises ne sont pas disponibles… Je ne comprends donc pas trop pourquoi je peux réserver le train mais pas réserver de place assise alors qu’elle est notée obligatoire. Dois-je réserver cette place assise en gare? Ou bien dois-je la réserver plus tard dans le mois? Est-ce que j’ai la possibilité de prendre un train direct entre Budapest et Cracovie étant donné que je ne peux pas aussi réserver de place assise pour l’autre train direct de la journée? Ainsi, pourriez m’aider à trouver une solution à ce problème ? Dans l’attente de votre réponse. Bien sincèrement, Mathilde Baron


6 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +5

There we go again: some parts in this world maintain other rules as this SNCF; you are waaaaaaaaaaay too EARly=tot! Usually only from 2 month before travell. And there is not any fear needed to do that then right away: it may even be a few days later too.

F.e. IN PL on IC by PKP it is from 1 month or 30 days before.

Oh thank you ! So I have to wait a bit…! :)

Userlevel 7
Badge +9

Je ne comprends donc pas trop pourquoi je peux réserver le train mais pas réserver de place assise alors qu’elle est notée obligatoire.

Adding a train to your pass in the app is not booking/reserving a train. It just means you register that you are going to use the train. It is the same as, for a paper pass, writing the train in the trip report.

You seem to have activated your pass already. Please note there is no need to do that in advance and there is no advantage in doing so, only a possible disadvantage. The best is to cancel activation for now and only activate it again on your start date, just before boarding your first train. If something unexpected happens on your planned start date and you want to postpone your trip, then it will be too late to cancel activation, because you can only do that until 23:59 before validity starts. The same is true for activating a travel day (for a flexipass).

Userlevel 6
Badge +4

Effectivement, il ne parait pas qu’il est possible de reserver des places pour ce train a ce moment. Les messages d’erreur n’indiquent pas qu’il est complet, mais ça semble improbable. Comme c’est vers Paques, veille a reserver à temps.

Sur le site de ÖBB je n’arrive pas a réserver ce train aucune autre date non plus, mais il est disponible sur le site des chemins de fer Tchèques (cd.cz) pour voyager jusqu’au 10 mars. Donc j’imagine que ce train será reservable alentours du 6 fevrier (2 mois avant).

Userlevel 7
Badge +9

Czech railways is indeed the best online way to book this train. From memory, Interrail only offers paper reservations (+€9 per order on top of the €2 booking fee). There are seats (CZK 75) and sleepers (from CZK 570).

Userlevel 7
Badge +9

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 you choose the start day of the validity of the pass. Once the validity has started it can't be changed even if you haven't travelled. The advice is therefore to wait with activating the pass and starting the validity until the first day of your travel as you only can deactivate the pass no later than 23.59 CET on the day before the validity starts. If your travel plans change in the last moment you can't deactivate the pass and change the validity. 

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.

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