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Hello, I am a non-EU resident and planning to visit Austria-Switzerland-Italy. I read about eurail global pass but i need some clarification before i purchase the global pass. 

Basically I will be spending few days in Austria and Italy whilst I will just spend 1 or 2 days in Switzerland. The whole reason why i stay in Switzerland is because i want to experience the Benina Express from Chur to Tirano, Italy (which is basically 1 of the highlight of my trip!)

My journey will start from:
1. Vienna and then I'll take a train to Salzburg. 
2. From Salzburg, I am planning to take a train to Chur.
3. From Chur, I'll take Benina Express directly to Tirano. 
4. From Tirano, I'll take a train to Milan and
5. From Milan i will take a train to Florence. 

The journey will be about 12 days all together. When I read about the Eurail global pass it seems that 7 days in 1 month pass is suitable for my trip. 

I have few questions as follows: 

1. Can eurail global pass be used for all of the above train route? 


2. How do i know which train am i taking since i am buying a eurail pass instead of buying specific train tickets. 


3. For benina express, how do i know if i can actually be on board of benina express since i read that there is also a regional train route from Chur to Tirano. I am worried that i will be denied to be on board of benina expreaa and i accidentally got the wrong train. 


4. Once i bought eurail global pass, i can directly reserve my seat on benina express trough the website? Do i need to purchase a separate ticket for it? Or i can just show them my Eurail Global Pass?


5. After i purchase the Eurail Global Pass, so what's next? What should i do to make sure i have the ticket and reservation for each train that i plan to use for my journey. 

Your assistance is greatly appreciated. Thank u.  

Hi, yes you can use all trains that you have listed. 

Optional are reservation on long distance trains in Switzerland and Austria. 

via ÖBB 3 EUR tickets.oebb.at seat only option. 

via SBB 5 CHF

local trains (like Tirano-Milan) are reservation free, your Ticket is your Eurail Pass. 

 

Some trains need a reservation that you have to buy:

Switzerland: Bernina Express is about 26 CHF Bernina Express - Shop (rhb.ch) (select as discount Eurail), or you can seat at the front of the train where there are seat without reservation (part of the train without panoramic windows or use IR trains to St. Moritz and from there local trains to Tirano (no reservation + some windows can be opened) 

Italy: Frecciarossa high speed train to Florence is 10 EUR. You can reserve directly via Eurail (+ 2 EUR booking fee and some times errors….) or via Austrian railways via tickets.oebb.at and select one way ticket and add as discount Interrail/Eurail Global Pass. Tutorial here: 

 

 

Here is some useful information from the experienced travellers in the Community regarding both planning, reservations and activation of pass and travel days. 

Thanks to @AnnaB for the Text!

 

 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, 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.

I count only 5 days of travel-so that pass is cheaper (but has to use in 1 month)

NOTE that for now and weeks to come there are WORks on the rails south of Tirano-in IT-there are replacing buses and can use pass on that.

Also note that Swiss has 7 highly publicised very sceniq railways and this is only 1-and many think other are more scenic.

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