I’m a total novice to Interrail and will be using the mobile pass. What is the sequence I should follow to book and use Eurostar as the start of our travel from the UK?
Should I have “My Trip” planned already on the mobile app? What then? All the online explanations sound obvious but not if you’ve never used them!
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Reservations are completely separate from the app.
To make a reservation, you don't need to do anything in the app. You don't even need to activate your pass (in fact, it's best to wait with activation until your first travel day).
Thank you! That’s one important hurdle crossed! Grateful.
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 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.
Depending on how long advance you now plan-if it is for fairly short-next month coming-check first IF there are any pasholder seats on that €*=the only way to exit GB on rails, via b-europe, on the day you want to go. The supplmt for pass is 30€-or more going direct to Nederland. If you aim for France first-there all long-distance trains are TGV (those famous hi-speed) and these all need to be reserved. You can also book online via b-europe, but that cost 4€ more and you need a pass-cover nr-which you can generate but only if you have the mobile pass (not need to be activated then). Or use other ways-as listed in the overview anna links to.
For a novice the terminology of Interrail can be confusing:
In the Rail Planner you first add your pass (or passes if more than one person travelling together).
Then you start a trip for each pass - they can be linked.
The Trip is basically your intended train journeys. At this stage they are simply appointments in a diary and can be changed at will.
Once the pass is activated (Not until the first day of travel is advised) you start to create travel days. Then on each day of travel you need to have the train you will be travelling on in your Trip, and then you toggle the slider to transfer the train to your pass.
You then open your pass and click on “Show ticket”. The QR code it generates along with the journey details are your ticket to travel. If you have made a reservation that will need to be presented as well. Only one QR code is generated for the whole day, but you need to make sure each train ride is added to your trip before boarding and the slider operated to display it in your pass.
You can add as many trains as you want to any travel day right up to boarding, so if plans change you have no worries changing trains.
The 2 in/out days are simply any 2 of your travel days where you can use them in an unlimited way to assist you on entering and leaving the country as if you were on the mainland of Europe (or out of your home country if not a resident of the UK. They are optional and can be any of your travel days and in any order. They do not have to be linked to any journey in or out of your country so could be used to get to or from an airport.
Hi
Indeed your Pass does not have to be activated for making seat reservations. If you want to book seat reservation with Eurostar, you will find all the relevant information here: https://www.interrail.eu/en/plan-your-trip/tips-and-tricks/trains-europe/high-speed-trains/eurostar
I wish you a lovely day!
Thank you for this. Appreciated.
Any clue as to how far in advance Eurostar reservations will be open to Interrail customers? I know I’m trying to plan way ahead but, for instance, Eurostar has bookings open for 30 March 23 but the Interrail link denies all knowledge for that date.
Obviously, I am ahead of myself, but leaving the UK at the right time is quite critical to the rest of our trip!
You should be able to book Eurostar as soon as they open bookings. It probably doesn't work yet via Interrail because they haven't yet loaded the new timetable yet.
You should be able to book via other channels though, e.g. via B-Europe:
https://www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass#TravelWish
They charge a fixed fee per online order, so it's best to book your return journey at the same time if you already know when that will be.
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