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Which Eurail pass to get?

Hello Everyone,

Family of 4 travelling with kids ages 11 and 13. Wondering if a 10 or 15 day travel pass is what we need. Also, when booking via the app, does it automatically add a ticket/qr code that we can show or do we have to print out tickets?

Thanks in advance!

Tuesday, June 20    Rome to Florence
Thursday, June 22    Florence to Pisa
Thursday, June 22    Florence to Milan
Friday, June 23    Milan To Tirano to St Moritz
Saturday, June 24    St Moritz To Brig to Interlaken
Tuesday, June 27    Interlaken to Ulm
Monday, July 10    Frankfurt to Paris
Thursday, July 13    Paris to London
Sunday, July 16    London to Brussels
Monday, July 17    Brussels to Amsterdam
Thursday, July 20    Amsterdam to Frankfurt

4 replies

T
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Userlevel 7
Badge +5

It is up to you to know how many pass days you might need. As Swiss tickets are very expensive it might be a good idea to use a pass day depending on your journey. The 11 y.o. child travels for free but you need to book a free pass + pay seat reservations for them too.

Seat reservations to add (per person) :

- 13€ Rome - Florence

- 13€ Florence - Milan

- 26 CHF for the Bernina Express : the route can be done on hourly reservation-free regional trains (some with 2 open-air coaches in summer, AW symbol on SBB app)

- 49 CHF for the Glacier Express to Brig (very popular, full weeks in advance) but the route can be done on hourly regional trains : St. Moritz - Reichenau-Tamins (or Chur) - Disentis/Mustér - Andermatt - Brig*. Not longer, less crowded and fully reservation-free.

- 9.80€ (for the whole family) Interlaken - Ulm through bahn.com

- 17€ Frankfurt - Paris

- 30€ Paris - London. Book ASAP (limited number of seats)

- 30€ London - Brussels. Book ASAP

- Brussels - Amsterdam use the hourly reservation-free IC train instead of the 27€ Thalys.

- 3€ Amsterdam - Frankfurt. Book well in advance too (very popular route).

For Italy + Amsterdam - Frankfurt use : tickets.oebb.at (no booking fee) -> add Eurail as a discount and select one-way tickets.

Eurostar use : https://www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass#TravelWish

About Interlaken area : Eurail pass fully valid on boats on Lake Thun and Brienz. 25% discount for tickets to Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald and above

*another very scenic route to Interlaken (I'd choose this one) : St. Moritz - ... - Andermatt - Göschenen - (every other hour, change in Arth-Goldau) - Lucerne - Interlaken Ost

Y
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Userlevel 7
Badge +10

The good news is that with a mobile pass you generate a universally acceptable ticket for each train on the screen. For the majority of services your reservation (which is separate from your pass/ticket) is also acceptable in either pdf display or as a printout.

You need to add each train to each pass (can be done to all passes in one go if on one device) and then, once activated, a slider appears that once operated creates a travel day and shows a QR code for the day plus a list of each train as you transfer them before boarding. An inspector will check the code and that the train in in the list, plus if there is a mandatory reservation, the evidence of the reservation. You need both for trains with mandatory reservations. 

 

M

Thanks @thibcabe and @Yorkie for the insightfull and detailed reply! I guess my last question is I was booking on the oebb site and it had this rather large message saying that “You need to print tickets”. I guess my question is, do I really need to print the tickets or can i just show the pdf or email?

T
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +5

The PDF version is good enough :)

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