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In august I am planning a trip with 11 years old son. I am not experienced with Eurail pass and now try to compare what is cheaper for us - Eurail or regular tickets. Lets say our route is the following: 

Lisbon - Porto

Toulouse - Montpellier

Montpellier - Marseille

Marseille - Nice

  1. EURAIL PASS. 4 days global pass for adult is 181 EUR (including spring discount) and free of charge for my son. But then as I understand we will need at least 4 days x 2 people x 12 EUR = 96 EUR for seat reservations. Do I correctly understand it? If yes, then the totals for us for this route would be close to 300 EUR. 
  1. SEPARATE TICKETS. If we purchase separate tickets directly, it will cost us approx. 80+45+45+60=231 EUR.

From these calculations it seems that Eurail pass is not a good option for our trip. Is it really so or maybe I miss to understand something about this pass? Maybe our one day transfers are too short for it t pay off? 

Reservations Lisbon-Porto are €5 each.

TGV or Intercité reservations in France are €10 if you book early enough (€20 otherwise) on raileurope.com. However, you  can do all French journeys mentioned by regional reservation-free trains.

These journeys are indeed not very long so the pass may not always pay off. The pass is more flexible though, especially if the normal tickets would be saver-type tickets that can't be changed.

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