Skip to main content

I think this is several questions in one but I’m totally new and very confused!

I have passes for my family. They are on the Railplanner app and also the Interrail website. I am travelling from the UK and have outbound and inbound reservations on the Eurostar via the website which I know I have to print out. But the app is asking me to link a trip, and that won’t have reservations on it. How on earth does all this work? I can see similar questions - I feel like I have two separate profiles and no idea how to connect them!

I also need to book my domestic train to and from St Pancras and the train company (LNER) demands a reservation, but the website isn’t letting me do that. Am I doing something wrong?

First one thing. Your reservations are separate from your app. There will be no link between them. In the app you create your ticket (QR code). You always need to have a ticket and sometimes you also have a reservation.

Start by looking at the instruction film about the mobile pass that is on the page in the link below.

Then, before you do anything with your app/pass, please read the advice from the experienced travellers i the Community that I will post in a reply below.

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

 

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

Fell free to ask questions if something is unclear. 

 

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 ticket 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.

Thank you. Thankfully we do not need any other reservations other than the Eurostar ones and our UK ones (which I can at least ask at our local station about). 
 

But I’m still confused. I understand that we print out the Eurostar reservations and show them alongside our mobile passes, but do they form part of our trip that we link to? All the rest of our trip is local unreserved trains - presumably I need to set it all out in the app and then link before departure? 

Your reservations will not be linked to your “Trip” in the app. In the app you need to find the correct train and add the train to your “Trip”. How to do that was shown in the film.

Each mobile pass has to be linked to a “Trip” in the app. In the “Trip” each train that you take must be added as a separate journey. This you can do in advance. Just before boarding the first train of your travel you first activate your pass and then connect the first journey in your “Trip” to your pass. Then you will get the ticket (QR code) for that travel.  Just before boarding your next train you connect the journey for that train to your pass and create the ticket.

 

There has been some issues in the UK with train staff that don’t recognize the mobile pass. If the train staff can’t scan the QR code there is a text below the QR code that they should look at.

Thanks, Anna. I haven’t been able to watch the video as I’m in a meeting at the moment but I will later. Hopefully I can work this all out. I’m not usually so defeated by things like this but I couldn’t find a person to talk to and the help services weren’t very helpful. 

Thanks, Anna. I haven’t been able to watch the video as I’m in a meeting at the moment but I will later. Hopefully I can work this all out. I’m not usually so defeated by things like this but I couldn’t find a person to talk to and the help services weren’t very helpful. 

I'm sure that you will work it out. You just ask here if you have more questions. 

Reply


Terms and Conditions & Privacy Policy