Eurail global pass and LNER

  • 26 February 2023
  • 7 replies
  • 898 views

Our group of 4 have the eurail global pass. We are trying to reserve seats on LNER for June 2 trip from London to Edinburg. I have not been able to reserve seats via interrail or LNER. It shows seats for purchase on June 2 on LNER but show “not available” when I try to reserve. On the interrail app it keeps directing me to the direct sites (ACP and LNER) is there a place to enter your global pass number for verification? Am I trying to reserve too far in advance? I was able to reserve the Eurostar with the global passes on May 20. And I have activated the global pass for the correct time frame. Help and Thanks!


7 replies

If you’d like to do a reservation, it may be done here: Make a seat reservation for our trains | LNER - you don’t need a pass number for this. But you are indeed trying too far in advance; it’s not possible yet. 

Userlevel 7
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Also, ignore any website that charges money for reservations in Great Britain, such as ACP. They're free of charge.

Thanks so much for the replies. When will I be able to make reservations for the LNER June 2 train?

Userlevel 7
Badge +7

General rule in Europe: Usually 3 months in advance. Sometimes later, sometimes earlier.

There are plenty of trains between London and Edinburgh, so don't be afraid that these book out months in advance. Usually there are still plenty of seats available a couple of days before departure.

Fridays and Sundays are more popular travel days on longer distances, so check a bit longer beforehand. 

We have purchased first class global pass as we will be dragging our luggage on the trip to Edinburg. Lots of availability for those seats also, 3 months out? The process to book the reservation…..how will the LNER site know I have a global pass? Or is reservation made without charge?

Userlevel 7
Badge +9

The process to book the reservation…..how will the LNER site know I have a global pass? Or is reservation made without charge?

They don't need to know what kind of ticket you have. The reservations can be used with any ticket and they're free of charge.

Userlevel 7
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. And I have activated the global pass for the correct time frame. Help and Thanks!

The advice from the experienced travellers in the community is to wait with activating ypur pass until the day of your first travel. Please read more about that below. 

 

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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