DO NO USE Eurail. HORRIBLE COMPANY

Thanks for your meaningful post!

Next time better do your homework instead of making a ridiculous post...

@Luluc and please STOP to spam all other questions here. 

We get it you are angry. yes Eurail can do a lot better, but they do not steal nothing. 

So when you get a charge on your credit card that YOU DID NOT MAKE and explain it to them with minutes, and they refuse to give all your money back, that isnt stealing?? 

Hate to break it to you IT IS.

Before you wrote that you couldn’t get reservations for trains that you would like to use, now you are saying that they charged your creditcard for no reason? Sounds like you are a troll. Hopefully soon an admin will tell you “good bye”.

If you can explain exactly what has happen maybe you can get some advice?  There might be some misunderstanding. 

Normally it takes several hours at least to get an answer from Customer Support so I am surprised that you got an answer so quickly.

I am-also via many such reactions, quite well aware that USAers first start to scream SCAM!! and then only after calming down are even able to think logic for a moment-if at all. Preferably with such loud voices that the whole world can also enjoy it.

So-assuming you stated all things right, which very often is not the case in these problems, it is an unjustified charge on your (USA always have loads of them nah?) Cr-cd and thus, IMHO, YOU have to contact the cr-cd company and start a dispute or ask them to show who did this charge and who did allow it. Seems to me the very logical step #1 anyway.

Having in my working life had to deal with travel-insurance claims, I have thus also learnt to be even more nosey as a police officer after an assumed theft would be. Good luck with it. And lower that voice.

Not a troll.

My elderly mother used my card and bought the WRONG TICKETS. I tried to get a refund IMMEDIATELY.  I then tried to roll with and make it work anyways but there is LITERALLY ZERO available seat for ANY train leaving to ANY country from our departure city. So the pass is COMPLETELY useless and out trip is totally messed up now.  The costumer service person emails me that YES, there is no way to know you cant make the seat reservation until AFTER you have the pass, and YES the website makes it really difficult to see when trains are sold out. And YES, they can that see the passes were bought within minutes of the refund request but NO they do not care and will keep my money. THIS IS THEFT.   And all of you who think its appropriate that Eurail refuse to give people money back for such a situation and stand up for a multi million dollar company fucking over the little guy over what is a very small amount of money to them, but a large amount for me…. enjoy the stockholm syndrome.

I understand your frustration a bit better now. But you still didn’t provide exact details on which train you were planning to take - and when. Which departure city? Which countries you’re talking about? You’re to generic to help you provide alternatives. Calm down, provide us with details and we’ll try to get you on the way anyhow.

Which wrong ticket did you buy, and which did you wanted to buy?

I presume this is Eurostar that is fully booked?

The last weeks we’ve been suggesting plenty of alternatives to it. This community can help you, we’ve been helping people out of the sometimes unnecessarily complicated rail network in Europe since day 1 of this forum.

What I need help on is getting my full refund for worthless passes. What I don’t need is people belittling me because of where I was born.  Pretty hateful to be honest. 

They are fully aware that the charge on my card was not made by me but my mother who has dementia.  Everyone, including Eurail, has said YES, it is very hard to figure out if a train is sold out on this website. If its hard for people with the FULL cogitative abilities, than its especially hard for the elderly. 

What I am asking for is a full refund for a service that WAS NOT given. A refund for erroneous charge made by a person who as NOT the card holder. This request  was explained and given straight away.

Eurail CAN refund all my money, and yet they are refusing to do it. It’s unethical. It’s horrible costumer service. 

In line with my fellow members I suggest you consider the following before blowing off.

You accept that your mother, using your credit card, put in the order, albeit for the wrong passes. Where is the theft?

In accordance with their Terms and Conditions  did they offer you either an 85% refund or an exchange of passes for a small admin fee? In order to exchange your passes you normally need to buy the new ones then they exchange them and reimburse the original payment minus the small fee (about $15 per pass)

It is clear on the website and on this community that your Global pass is just a ticket to travel on many trains in Europe. Some of these also have optional or mandatory reservations which usually require an additional payment, not included in your pass and these are managed totally separate from your pass.

All users of Global Passes can research before purchase whether trains are available at the time of checking on a number of sites. There are guides throughout the posts on this community, including guidance for anybody planning a trip - just ask respectfully. As a generalisation the main problems with availability on trains with mandatory reservations are Eurostar (UK - Mainland Europe), Thalys (France - Holland), SNCF TGVs and sleeper trains. All others usually have many options throughout the day.

The only one that doesn’t have a viable alternative service (often without reservation) is Eurostar, which has a total rail monopoly on crossing the English Channel, limits the number of pass reservations and charges a high reservation fee.

I don’t know about USA but in GB the credit card company is jointly liable for problems with a purchase. I would try contacting them for help. It is possible they may be sympathetic but I expect you will need to explain how you shared your credit card security with another person. I think it’s worth a try.

Exactly, there is NO VIABLE ALTERNATIVE.  I tried to figure out how I could possibly use the pass since I was charged for it. THERE IS NONE. I went as far being willing to completely change where we are going. There are ZERO options for our dates (weeks outs)  other than buying full price ticket on the Eurostar. Which is as much as the pass.  It didn’t show that the trains had ZERO availability for reservation, it just kept showing errors.

A simple SOLD OUT would do wonders, but yet they don’t put that on the train schedules.  And you can not try to reserve a seat without activating a pass.  So if you are getting errors and it not showing that is a sold out train, should I have magically known that they trains they are showing arent even bookable? That absurd.

All this to say. This company makes BILLIONS. The fact they are refusing to give my money back knowing the situation when they can speaks volumes. It’s horrible costumer service. It a shitty way to treat people. It’s unethical.  The fact that they dont even have a phone number to talk to their costumes shows how little they think of helping out with any issues with their service.

A company shouldn’t have to rely on unpaid community chat folk to do their job of explaining all the quirks of their website. The fact that they do, shows exactly how much they value costumers. Makes me wonder who on here is paid to be here and defend the shitty way this company treats people.

@Luluc There are other, better ways, to make reservations than the Eurail website. On those websites you can make reservation for many trains before you even buy the pass. For the Eurostar and the domestic French trains you can at least check availability before you buy the pass.

If you share your travel details with the Community you will get advice how you can travel.

Finally a hint of the journey(s) you were looking for. There are alternatives, by the way, but none are as fast as the Eurostar. One of them is explained here:

https://www.eurail.com/en/get-inspired/suggested-itineraries/london-to-europe-without-the-eurostar

But if you don't share any details, then nobody can help.

Unfortunately, it isn't as simple as that. “Prices unavailable” can mean a number of things, as is explained on the booking page, one of which is "sold out”.

That is not correct. Even though booking a reservation via the Eurail website requires you to buy a pass first, activating a pass is not required at all. In fact, none of the possibilities to buy a Eurostar reservation require an activated pass.

Yes, the process could be better. In particular checking availability before buying a pass, which many users have already asked for and which is expected to come in future. But you also clearly missed some information yourself.

Nobody here is paid by Eurail to defend anything.

I already looked at ALL THOSE alternative routes and nothing is available using the pass. If it was, I would have just sucked it up and used the pass.  But it is not.   You HAVE TO HAVE a pass to even attempt to book on this. I literally just searched it again without a pass, and it shows availability for trains at a price around 25 bucks. Those tickets are not actually available or even remotely that cost. Looking at the EXACT trains on other sites shows that the prices are closer to 500 bucks. You can not see the accurate price or open seats until AFTER you pay for a pass on this site. Only to find out there are NO SEATS that can be reserved with your pass. HOW IS THAT NOT MISLEADING? Why show trains they cant book at prices that are not real.

They should be paying you considering the lenghts yall will go to defend them not refunding money for a pass that cant be used and was bought it error by someone that isnt the card holder .  You need a raise.

There is information on the Eurail website that says that you must be logged in, thus having a pass, to see actual availability of reservations.

So they knowingly mislead folks into buying passes they don’t know if they can actually use? I suppose my mother with dementia should have combed through this company website to discover that the search results they show are completely false and you can only see the real prices and availability to use your pass if you pay them.  And this is hard hitting evidence?  Ha. What’s flavor is the koolaid yall are drinking that you think that is remotely ethical?   Do you understand how website are made? They CAN so accurate search results when you paid them but cant when you havent? That is a CHOICE. An unethical choice.

There are more alternatives to Eurostar, depending on your journey. In particular, there are several other ferries and one of them even has a Eurail/Interrail discount (Harwich - Hoek van Holland) and often has availability. But without route and date it's difficult to advise.

No it doesn't. The website says:

In addition, USD 25 is not Eurostar but another train, for which alternatives probably exist but without details advice is difficult.

I’m not defending that at all, I'm just correcting some of your assumptions, pointing out the information that is available and offering help in case you want that with finding alternatives, which can often be pointed out once enough journey details are provided.

In fact, I also find it very bad that availability can't be seen on the Eurail website before you buy a pass. I've written that a number of times in this community. And I do wonder whether enough information is provided in advance about limited pass holder seat availability in some trains. And whether the small warning you see (when you're not logged in) is clear enough to warn prospective pass buyers that they're not looking at real availability. If you do start legal action, I“d be very interested in the outcome.

You still haven’t given details of whether Eurail offered you a refund of 85%. The only time they do not offer this is if you bought in a discount sale, and I am not aware of any recent sales for Eurail, although there was one for its European equivalent, Interrail, a few weeks ago.

Did you check the b-europe dedicated site for pass holders? To check availability is easy and does not require you to have a pass, merely indicate the type of pass you intend travelling with (Eurail 1st or 2nd Class).

https://www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass#TravelWish

You have a choice of London to Paris, Lille, Brussels or Amsterdam.

A quick check for early January shows no problems with availability. If you post your planned dates and preferred destination we can quickly check for you.

Here is a typical page from the site for a second class pass.

and one for first class pass holders to Paris

Extremely bad customer service. No telephone lines, no chatting, just an email line that is slow and the people running it show no understanding. Avoid this company at all costs. It really is going to cost me a lot of money for making the mistake to choose them.

Be really careful when buying from this company. The customer service is inexistent.
I bought 03 passes on Dec 16. Travelled to London to start a tour in Europe. Got to Eurail station and was told the next train on Jan 09 2024. I was told by the agent to cancel. I tried to reach them. To no avail. Rented a car and drove my trip 3715 miles. Lots of gas and tolls. Came back to the US. Tried to reach the unreachable. No avail. I was okay getting the 85% back as it stated on the purchase. Reached for the credit card to see. Making it short. They cancelled the passes unsed. Did not ever contacted me. Keep the money. I know there are a lot of happy customers with like I was 30 years ago. Before you buy it. Make a note. There are only a extreme limited tickets available. Do not travel over the hollidays. A company that does not reach out to solve customers questions saying that are two many of them is not worthy of your trust.

@Paulo Sergio Tolentino 

It sounds a bit like you didn't really know what you bought, missed the information about making reservations in advance and the advice to do that early (especially at busy times), missed that you can request a refund from your Eurail account, missed the support information and how to contact support.

If Eurail did cancel your passes, then you should get the 85% refund on your credit card. I'm not sure how long that takes though. You can ask about the status here:

https://eurail.zendesk.com/hc/en-001/requests/new

(Note: there are only a few trains with limited availability for pass holders but Eurostar from/to London is one of them.)

I may have missed some information along the way. What I did not miss was:

i continuously asked for help to cancel trip because I could not use.

I was not allowed to do so.

I never use a single day of the trip.

I will have to pay the credit card because they bought your narrative that somehow activated the pass. No idea how. And because of that it could not be cancelled. If you insist in this narrative I could post here the answer they gave to tge credit card why they will refund the unused Pass. I am glad that you guys are quick to answer on facebook.

Please note I don't work for Eurail.

You can't cancel a pass anymore after the validity period has started, so when a pass is already active. When a pass is active, that means you loaded the pass in the app and completed the 3 steps for activation. In step 3, you explicitly have to choose a start date for the validity and the app will show a warning about whether that can be changed later.

Also note that activating a pass is not necessary to book a reservation.

Normally only unused and not activated passes can be refunded, which means that you have to cancel activation before requesting a refund and that is only possible before the validity period starts. However, Eurail will sometimes, on a case by case basis, also refund passes of which the validity period has already started.

You can post more information if you want.