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Hi Rookie here from NZ

Thank you in advance for your time.

I’ve bought 4 passes 1 adult, 1 senior 2 x youth.  Youth are 16 and 13. 
 

Is it better to have all 4 passes on my device? If husband puts pass / app on his device how do I share the bookings with him? Likewise with the teenagers?  Would you also have the teenagers have the passes on their phones  or on my phone?  Is there a way he doesn’t have to sit and input all the journeys too?
 

Also if I have the passes on different devices how do I make sure we are all sat together when I book seat reservations.  
 

Finally do stations have ticket security barriers? How does this work if we are all on one device?  Is there a separate gate we need to go to? 
 

 I appreciate your advice. 
 

Thanks from a Kiwi

I'd put the passes on separate devices to be able to travel independently if needed.

You can share trip information.

Booking reservations is completely separate and does not depend on the devices the passes are on.

Barriers at stations are only present in some countries at some stations. They can often be opened with the QR code (multiple times if they're on 1 phone), or else by the station staff after showing your pass.

If you beak seat reservation for 4 people, you almost always sit together. Plenty of bay of 4’s in most trains.

Note that if you book via the Eurail reservation service, you usually cannot choose your seats. You sometimes can if you book via the ways listed in the custom made reservation section mentioned in the link below. In some cases you should be able to choose your seat:

If you plan to take the Eurostar, book seat reservations asap.

The recommendation from the experienced travellers in the community is to only make reservations through the Eurail website if no other options are available. Please read more about that below. 

 

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 you choose the start day of the validity of the pass. Once the validity has started it can't be changed even if you haven't travelled. The advice is therefore to wait with activating the pass and starting the validity until the first day of your travel as you only can deactivate the pass no later than 23.59 CET on the day before the validity starts. If your travel plans change in the last moment you can't deactivate the pass and change the validity. 

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 and create the ticket (QR code), 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.

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