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Dear Community,

our last Interrail tour is ages ago after school. Now we are considering it again to travl with my 2 year old daughter. We live in the UK now and wanted to visit the grandparents in Germany.

Unfortunately by train there is just one way via the Eurostar. It seems that many tickets and seat are avaiblabe, even on short notice, but reading through the recent posts, there are not much good news agbout the combination of Interrail and the Eurostar. We will give it a go either way, but like to aks some questions, which can hopefully be answered here:

  1. as fas as I understand, you need to buy Interrail pass before before making any plands, right?
  2. after planning the journey for an adult and a child we get our seat reservations for the Eurostar via the reservation tool, right?
  3. Does my 2 year old need a seat reservation for the Eurostar?
  4. Can I also get the seat reservation via the Eurostar webside or only with the Interrail reservation tool?
  5. What is the latest point in time to get a seat reservation for teh Eurostar?
  6. How do I manage to get 2 seats for the Eurostar, if my 2 year old does not have a childrens pass (children only count fro 4 years).

Thanks in advance and looking forward to your reply.

 

Kind regards

 

Timo

The Interrail website will not allow you book seats without a pass having been purchased but other sources of tickets are available.

For Eurostar, the only other place to search and buy passholder reservations is https://www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass#TravelWish The Eurostar website does not sell passholder fares, only full fare tickets.

 

Under 4s travel for free but will not be allocated a seat. You are expected to keep them on your lap. I don’t know what option you would have to get a seat, with normal fares you could just buy the over 4 child fare but with passes I expect you will be blocked when you input the age.

 

There is no fixed latest point to get passholder fares, once the highest relevant fare bracket for any particular departure sells out they will disappear, there is no way of putting a date on when this will happen.

Dear Community,

our last Interrail tour is ages ago after school. Now we are considering it again to travl with my 2 year old daughter. We live in the UK now and wanted to visit the grandparents in Germany.

Unfortunately by train there is just one way via the Eurostar. It seems that many tickets and seat are avaiblabe, even on short notice, but reading through the recent posts, there are not much good news agbout the combination of Interrail and the Eurostar. We will give it a go either way, but like to aks some questions, which can hopefully be answered here:

  1. as fas as I understand, you need to buy Interrail pass before before making any plands, right? No. Most reservations can be made before you buy your pass. Please read more below about that and ask in the Community if you need help.
  2. after planning the journey for an adult and a child we get our seat reservations for the Eurostar via the reservation tool, right? No. You have to make all the reservations you need your self. There is no connection between the Rail Planner App and reservations made. The experienced travellers recommended you to only make your reservations through Interrail if no other alternatives are possible. Please read more about that below. 
  3. Does my 2 year old need a seat reservation for the Eurostar? This you need to check with Eurostar. 
  4. Can I also get the seat reservation via the Eurostar webside or only with the Interrail reservation tool? The best way to make the reservations for the Eurostar is through the special Interrail website at b-europe 
  5. What is the latest point in time to get a seat reservation for teh Eurostar? That is not possible to answer. Popular departures during high season can sell out months in addition but in low season you can get a seat the same day.
  6. How do I manage to get 2 seats for the Eurostar, if my 2 year old does not have a childrens pass (children only count fro 4 years). If you want a seat for a child under the age of 4 you just add a child's pass when ordering your audult pass.

 

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, 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 don’t know what option you would have to get a seat, with normal fares you could just buy the over 4 child fare but with passes I expect you will be blocked when you input the age.

 

@Al_G You can get a child's pass for a child younger that 4 if you want to be able to book seats for the child.

Thanks guys, this is very helpful!

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