Dear Interrail Team (as there is no service mail to contact you),
Yesterday I returned to Germany from a trip through Scandinavia, and I encountered an issue related to the handling of the inbound travel day in combination with a night train. I would like to share my experience and suggest a possible improvement.
Yesterday (July 25), I took a night train from Copenhagen to Hamburg. Since the train departed before midnight, the journey was assigned to July 25 according to Interrail rules – which is generally very convenient, as it uses only one travel day.
However, this led to an unexpected problem in my case: because I was returning to my home country (Germany) on this night train, the inbound travel day was also assigned to July 25. Although I didn’t cross the German border until around 3:00 AM on July 26, I was unable to activate another travel day beyond Hamburg – the app considered the inbound journey already used, and my 7th and final travel day remained unused.
Another aspect of the issue is that the app seems to assume that the destination of the night train (in this case, Hamburg) is also the final destination of the entire journey. However, I was planning to continue to Stuttgart, and this assumption contributed to the problem, as the system did not allow me to activate another journey on July 26.
Fortunately, your chat customer support team kindly granted me an additional inbound day as a gesture of goodwill, which allowed me to complete my journey. I am very grateful for this support – thank you!
I would like to suggest that the Rail Planner app include a clear warning when someone books a night train returning to their home country. Especially when using the last remaining travel day, this situation can lead to the final day being “lost,” even though the passenger is still actively traveling the next morning. It should be stated, that the last station of the night train will be your last station you will be able to travel to - also if this is not your actual final destination.
A clearer warning or smarter handling of inbound day assignment in such cases could help avoid confusion and improve the user experience.
Thank you for your attention and your excellent service.
