I’ve been doing a lot of research but I just want to clarify all the steps but also ask questions. I haven’t purchased my eurail pass yet but I will soon as I am planning to travel in August.
I plan to get 2 passes (both global x day passes). I’m traveling from Edinburgh to London. My mom is flying into London and meeting me there and we’ll travel over to Paris on a different date. I’ll be handling all the passes/tickets since it’s not my mom’s strong suit. My understanding is that I purchase my eurail passes first (I plan on purchasing from raileurope since it’s the cheapest). After that, I add the passes to my mobile eurail app?
Obviously I don’t want to activate my passes yet since it’s only June and our first day of travel isn’t until August 2nd. Will adding the passes automatically activate my pass? How does pass activation for day of travel actually work? So for example. The first day of my trip is August 2nd from Edinburgh to London. I checked the eurail website and I need to pay for a reserved seat booking. That’s fine I know this is standard on some trains.
I also get that the eurail pass is separate from reservations. So let’s say I purchase my pass. Do I go to eurail.com, look up the trip for Edi > Lon, add in my pass number and then book my seat? So now I have two different items I have to account for? The actual ticket and the reservation. So when I get to the station turnstiles do I scan my EURAIL mobile pass and that’s how I activate my first travel day and get access to the station areas? Then my reservation ticket (I assume will be emailed to me) will give me details on where I’m sitting and that’s what I show the person who checks ticket?
For trains that don’t require reservations do I just hop on and off? (For example, Colmar and Strasburg doesn’t require extra booked seats.) Would I simply have my mobile pass available to be scanned on board?
For trains that require reservations within France would I be able to book at the stations or should I just book them online? (I don’t imagine trains for Paris to Colmar would sell out fast) but would it be easier to just do it ahead of time to be sure?
I assume when I book my reservations on different websites that’s not eurail it works the same way? I’ll have a ticket in addition to my mobile pass? Both will get checked when on board?
Also, my understanding is that it isn’t wise to rely on the eurail website for train times? For example, I’m looking at Paris > Colmar. On the Eurail website there is a train that leaves at 9ish am. But I checked the B Europe website and the train doesn’t appear there. Does this mean that the eurail option is inaccurate…? The b Europe website would be the more reliable website do do you think the b Europe will update later with the available 9 a.m. train?
Night trains can be booked from the major websites correct? How does it count travel days? for example if I take a night train on a Monday that arrives on a Tuesday. What about weird connecting trains? For example if a train travels on a Monday, we have to get off to catch a connection train on a Tuesday does this count as two days of travel? (ideally these sound miserable and would like to avoid but just in case as I did see a few like these while checking around times.)