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Hello,

 

As we start planning our trip for end of year through London - Paris - Chamonix - Milan - Venice - Florence, and while reading the posts in the community I am getting more and more concerned about how this Global Pass will work (or not work).

I do not get to understand the process of getting a Pass, Activating the Pass, Planning my Trip in Advance, etc. It seems like I cannot book/Purchase my trips (for each segment) way in advance, is that correct? For example, I am trying to get the times for the trains from now (to travel between Dec 26th and Jan 03rd) and they are not available. Does anybody know when those times will be available? I need to make sure I have accurate information for example about trains on December 25th and January 01st.

How far in advance do you (experienced travelers with Eurail) think I could/should get my tickets/trip booked within my Pass, to avoid shortage of availability or other issues being end of year and maybe less trains running, weather affecting trains availability, etc?

Any guidance and extra feedback would be much appreciated.

Many thanks,

 

NDimare.-

every year in the second Sunday in December there is in Europe the start of the new timetable for trains, so be aware that searching for the timetable can be possible only from October for some countries to some weeks before for some others. 

Have you looked at the guide to the mobile pass?

https://www.interrail.eu/en/interrail-passes/interrail-mobile-pass/getting-started

Please also read the advice below from the experienced travellers.

 

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 have the same concern.  Can I not actually “buy” the ticket prior to activating my pass?  I have created a trip with the trains I would iike but see no way to purchase them.  Thanks

I have the same concern.  Can I not actually “buy” the ticket prior to activating my pass?  I have created a trip with the trains I would iike but see no way to purchase them.  Thanks

Reservations are separate from the app. Look at the link in my reply above. 

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