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Using paper pass as "backup" for app, in case app "fails"

  • 20 December 2022
  • 8 replies
  • 175 views

Thank you to all the contributors who have spent their time answering questions and providing many help documents. Having spent time looking at these and the answers to questions raised, I think (hope!) I completely understand how Eurail pass works.

I have also read that some users have had problems with Mobile pass failing at the most inconvenient time.While I am very comfortable with use of technology, such a failure can mean buying expensive tickets to continue our journey.

I will get a paper pass. If I link this to the app, does this invalidate the paper pass?

If I have paper pass linked to app, I can do all planning and ticketing in app. At the same time, I would complete the journeys section on the paper pass, matching the journeys created in app. If the mobile app does not work, can I show the paper pass for inspection?

 

Thanks for any advice that can be offered

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Best answer by MartinM 20 December 2022, 10:42

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Userlevel 7
Badge +6

You can’t link a paper pass to an app. Either you have a paper OR a mobile pass. 
If you have a paper pass, you don’t have to do anything in the app to have a valid ticket.
You just write down your trains in the pass before boarding a train and that’s it.

Userlevel 7
Badge +9

If you plan to get a paper pass shipped to Australia, make sure that you allow enough time for the shipment. 

Userlevel 7
Badge +7

Using it from Australia, especially when making reservations via the Interrail/Eurail website might give complications because of the time difference.

The App itself doens’t fail that often when using it. It never happened to me, and I already used 5 mobile passes.

Just don’t rely on the planner in the app to plan your rail journeys, but use a national planner. Deutsche Bahn usually has a good overview of most rail connections in Europe.

But if you follow the guidelines and tips of our community members to make reservations, I shouldn’t really worry using the mobile pass. :)

 

@MartinM Thank you for your reply, could you please clarify this comment “You can’t link a paper pass to an app”. The rail planner app allows a paper pass to be link to a trip (or is this changing?)

@AnnaB understand the shipping time, my trip is not until  May

@BrendanDB thanks for your feedback and your experience with app, I don’t think I’ll need to use Eurail website for reservations, my travel will be Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Eurostar, Italy, and I have used national rail company sites for reservations on past trips. Though I am interested why the time zone difference would pose a problem.

 

Thanks all

Userlevel 7
Badge +6

@MartinMThank you for your reply, could you please clarify this comment “You can’t link a paper pass to an app”. The rail planner app allows a paper pass to be link to a trip (or is this changing?)

Recently it was written here in a post by someone from the EURAIL team that from 01.01.2023 it won’t be possible anymore to write the travel diary in the app while having a paper pass as this confused some conductors. As I suppose you will be starting to travel only after that date, you will be “forced” to write a paper diary.

So or so it is way easier to just fill in quick 30 seconds your trip in the paper diary then searching the stations in the app, finding the right trip and then adding it to your pass (and in case it is not available, adding the train manually!)

Userlevel 7
Badge +7

 

@BrendanDBthanks for your feedback and your experience with app, I don’t think I’ll need to use Eurail website for reservations, my travel will be Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Eurostar, Italy, and I have used national rail company sites for reservations on past trips. Though I am interested why the time zone difference would pose a problem.

 

Thanks all

 

The app is completely focussed on Central European Time (GMT+1). Even if you booked reservations, or added dates in a timezone that’s 10 hours later or earlier, the app always thinks you’re in CET, sometimes leading to different times and dates for your reservations or itineraries. It also posed problems for adding your birthdate e.g. It’s easy to solve to set your device’s timezone to CET.

I understood that the team is working on this to solve it, no idea if they’ve fixed this already :).

Some people prefer paper, some mobile. But support for the paper pass diminished a bit. A couple of years ago you got a nice plastic cover, to avoid your ticket getting wet, some extra sheets in case you’re out of lines to fill out, a rail map,…I’ve heard that this service diminished a bit the last years and that you don’t get this nice stuff any more. No idea if the same applies for Eurail.

Userlevel 7
Badge +5

Yes it is-at least from the big ´official source´ There are still-varies a lot per country, Oz/AU is not really big in that, US/CA is, a few independent resellers or travel agents, often doing passes as a kind of by-product to sell other service they make much more gains on. OZ seems often hooked on that KLOOK-which advertises they can do tix al around the world, even for the rolling open air museum called rot fay here in Thailand, the SRT-soon to be using its shiny new shopping centre as new central station and leaving old HuaLamPong. But I still have a stack of old-time covers, guidelets etc.-though I hardly need them except for the covers. In the past there were for EUrail also those handy small timetablebooklets, of course, as for the dumboś, subdivided in am/pm. AM/PM is a smaller chain of conveniencestores here too-besides the FamilyMart and the 7-11

 

@BrendanDBthanks for your feedback and your experience with app, I don’t think I’ll need to use Eurail website for reservations, my travel will be Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Eurostar, Italy, and I have used national rail company sites for reservations on past trips. Though I am interested why the time zone difference would pose a problem.

 

Thanks all

 

I understood that the team is working on this to solve it, no idea if they’ve fixed this already 🙂.

@BrendanDBYou may be right, I got a prompt when opening planner for first time to set my time to automatic from network

 

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