If less than 180 days - why won't it let me book?

I even tested days in May - they are definitely way less than 180 and STILL it won’t give the option to buy! WTF?!

www.raileurope.com will even book it without any extra booking fee.

In fact, they're imposing an unjustified extra limit on these and some other trains. In this case, it seems to be exactly 120 days (not 180), since Eurail can book London-Paris until the early morning trains of 7 May but not later trains.

@Camilo. @Mukhammad Any news on lifting these booking limits? For the Eurostars to/from London, it's neither 120 nor 180 days. You should not be blocking reservations at all when they're open.

Hi @rvdborgt, we understand that the pre-booking periods are quite challenging, since we use different APIs for booking reservations depending on the route. We need a long-term action to set them up.

I will remind the respective team again for this case. Thank you again for letting us know.

Hello! We have an update regarding this. We rely on information directly from carriers and official policies from railway companies to determine when to open bookings. This means that even if a train may be available for booking earlier through other systems, we won't be aware of its availability until it aligns with the data provided to us by the carriers. 

@Olga.

So what you're saying is that the booking page won't even try to do a seat reservation if the journey is still further in the future than what the railway company said to Eurail?

I see a few problems with that:

• Sometimes, bookings just open earlier than the general carrier’s guideline.
• It looks like some railways are sending you incorrect information, e.g. Eurostar and SNCF.

It doesn't hurt to try regardless of what the railways told Eurail. If you don't, and reservations are already open, it also means you're supplying incorrect information. Especially for trains that sell out fast, e.g. some night trains, it can mean people just can't get reservations. We've seen cases where people wait until the date that the Eurail/Interrail website said bookings would open, only to find out that the train was already full. And they didn't try to book elsewhere because of the incorrect information that bookings would open e.g. 90 days in advance.

@Olga. Do you have any feedback on my last comment?

The current reservation policy on the booking website is flawed and the information on the booking horizons is incorrect or at least incomplete. IMO this needs to change, so that people are not misinformed.

As an example, SNCF do not have a fixed booking horizon for most of their trains and this has been the case for a number of years. If they tell you there's a fixed booking horizon (as the information on the booking page seems to imply), then they're lying to you: they know it's not true.

You can check the SNCF release dates here:

https://www.sncf-connect.com/aide/l-ouverture-des-ventes

(Don't look at the corresponding English page, since it does not have the same details.)

This also means that blocking reservations until they supposedly open, e.g. 3 months in advance, is not helpful and should not be done.