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Share your feedback on the new Eurail Community!

Our new Community just went live! Like with every new platform, it is not going to work exactly like our previous community or other communities you are used to, so we’re going to have to navigate this transition together.

This new space is ours and we want to make sure everyone feels comfortable in here. But as we are right at the start of this new chapter, we very much encourage you to take a moment to share your thoughts with us. Are you satisfied, do you find it user friendly, or do you still have some wishes or ideas for improvement to share?

Please let us let us know if anything comes to mind – all your thoughts are much appreciated. This way we can make the community even more fun and easy to use.

Do you come across something odd or are you experiencing problems? Please let us know in the comments below with the name of your browser and a screenshot. Thanks for your help!

Hello, I log in with my Facebook account. Is there any way to stay logged in? Now I have to do it again every day or even twice a day. I use Chrome.


Hello, I log in with my Facebook account. Is there any way to stay logged in? Now I have to do it again every day or even twice a day. I use Chrome.

Hi there, thanks for sharing your feedback! if you are logged in to Facebook, you should be able to log in without having to fill out your login details from Facebook. If you are still experiencing issues, do send me a private message so that I can look into it further. 


I use the "Active since last visit” link to browse through the new messages and replies. However, this list seems to be ever growing. It now contains topics in which the newest reply was 4 days ago, although I come here at least once a day. It should really only contain topics which are new or contain new replies since my last visit of this page.


I use the "Active since last visit” link to browse through the new messages and replies. However, this list seems to be ever growing. It now contains topics in which the newest reply was 4 days ago, although I come here at least once a day. It should really only contain topics which are new or contain new replies since my last visit of this page.

Thanks for sharing your feedback :relaxed:

The 'active since last visit' view will function on the basis of your authentication cookie.  As long as your previous authentication cookie is still active the list won't change.  If you actually log out of the community and log back in, it will act as a new visit and you should see a totally refreshed list.  


I use the "Active since last visit” link to browse through the new messages and replies. However, this list seems to be ever growing. It now contains topics in which the newest reply was 4 days ago, although I come here at least once a day. It should really only contain topics which are new or contain new replies since my last visit of this page.

Thanks for sharing your feedback :relaxed:

The 'active since last visit' view will function on the basis of your authentication cookie.  As long as your previous authentication cookie is still active the list won't change.  If you actually log out of the community and log back in, it will act as a new visit and you should see a totally refreshed list.  

I haven't logged out indeed. But many other forums seem to be able to do this without requiring users to log out. Often they even keep track of which messages and replies you have actually read. That would really be useful and time-saving.


Ik zou graag de mogelijkheid zien om een bericht dat ik heb geplaatst, terug kan verwijderen als ik dit wil. 


Ik zou graag de mogelijkheid zien om een bericht dat ik heb geplaatst, terug kan verwijderen als ik dit wil. 

Bedankt voor je feedback, Sven. Dit is inderdaad niet mogelijk binnen dit platform en zover ik weet is dit niet iets wat gaat komen omdat het vaak een enkele keer voorkomt dat een lid een post wilt verwijderen. Maar ik zal dat zeker nog even nagaan. Mocht je een post/ reply verwijderd willen hebben, dan kun je mij een privé berichtje sturen :relaxed:


@Jody , @Nanja , @rvdborgt : Feedback for Interrail/Eurail System, Website, App

Dear Interrail/Eurail team,

This year we tried the experiment to avoid planes and cars for our summer holiday outside our country of residence. This is my first time buying an Interrail ticket and so many things went wrong even before the trip that I decided to share my feedback as a new customer for you to improve the service. There is a desperate need to improve it, especially if you as an Interrail team not only try to make money but try to improve travelling through Europe and to improve the offer in order for more people avoiding cars and planes and riding trains.
Of course you can just ignore this and throw it into a trash can - in the end it's just feedback - but I beg you to try to improve the whole concept, system, website and app in order to make train travelling a better option than flying or taking a car. I don't need justifications for any of the points, just see this as free consulting.

Dear other travellers: Feel free to add your amendments/suggestions/comments for these points.


Booking reservations:
B1: nURGENT] Give mobile pass users a "passholder number" / "Pass Cover number" or make travel.b-europe.com work for users of a mobile pass! Seriously, soooooo many people have the problem that they can't book their ticket on travel.b-europe.com because you don't have that number when booking a mobile pass. The solution is not that every single mobile pass users that can't book on interrail.eu for some reason desperately searches for a solution for hours and wastes time of his or her and your support team!
If you are a traveller and have the same problem, please call the booking hotline of the train operator, e.g. call SNCF if you want to ride a TGV in France. They will help you to book a seat, although a bit more expensive.


B2: Try to streamline the booking process when being forwarded from interrail to travel.b-europe.com:
--> copy all user information (destination, arrival, date, time, travellers) like it is done when being redirected from the app to interrail.eu
--> try to make booking via travel.b-europe.com superfluous (I read of many users that couldn't book their TGV seats because they seem to be booked out, which they are certainly not if they can still be booked via SNCF, and they had to use travel.b-europe.com) because interrail.eu said "Prices unavailable"


B3: In the app (planner/my trip -> "How and then to book?") and in forums, it says you can "Book at major train stations" as well. This is not true! I was in a "DB Reisezentrum" at the Karlsruhe main station in Germany today (drove there without success and waited 20 minutes for nothing) and they told me I can only reserve a TGV ticket from Karlsruhe to Paris, but not for any TGV within France.
--> Make booking seat reservations possible through all train reservation offices in Europe
--> Make booking seat reservations possible through all major train station ticket machines in Europe (even in advance)


B4: TGVs seem to have a "contingent" for Interrail passengers. Even though the TGVs can still be booked regularly via SNCF for a high price, the same train can often not be selected for a seat reservation at interrail.eu. When calling SNCF, I was able to book seats (though for a slightly higher reservation fee) - it says "INTERRAIL NON CONTINGENTÉ 2ÈME CLASSE - IR01" on the ticket, so this seems to be a loophole through the contingent.
--> Why is there a contingent at all? Is Interrail a proper ticket or is it just a third class discount see-how-you-get-along-you-stupid-victim ticket? If the latter one applies, keep it that way. If not, see how you can improve the situation.
--> If SNCF (and other train operators) refuse to remove the contingent system, please ask them to significantly increase the contingent for Interrail passengers! I wouldn't have bought the Interrail Pass if I knew what struggle it was to book TGVs, how much luck I need to have and which extra costs occur - for my journey, booking via SNCF directly would have been cheaper and much easier (now that I now all the extra fees and the pain)! My conclusion is to avoid Interrail for the future and discourage friends from buying it - is this what you wanted? I guess not.

 

 

Website:
W1: When new users visit your site for the first time, they can enter where they go and a map pops up with the price of the ticket. This is very cool, but it is very confusing in the beginning (and not easy to find a simple answer) that if someone for example wants to visit France but starts in another country (which certainly most people do), most commonly the country of residence, for example Germany, the user actually needs a Global Pass instead of a One Country Pass, which means you have to pick "Germany" as a first "Destination" to get the proper suggestion.
--> directly make clear on the homepage that people who make a trip from one to another country need a Global Pass.
--> make the trip planner map less confusing by offering a "from" field (e.g. "Where do you start your journey?")
--> add this information in the FAQ and in the pop-up that appears after clicking "Show Results" -> "About this Pass", e.g. "One Country Pass xy: ... Only valid when travelling within the selected country. If you want to take a train from anther country, e.g. your country of residence, you need a Global Pass bLink]"


W2: For the "Global Pass", make the information more visible that people only have one outbound and one inbound trip from their country of residence inclusive, e.g.:
--> add this information in the FAQ and in the pop-up in the trip planner map that appears after clicking "Show Results" -> "About this Pass", e.g.: "Global Pass: ... You can only book one outbound and one inbound trip from your country of residence. I you want to leave and enter your country of residence multiple times, you need to buy a separate ticket for this second journey."


W3: When trying to book a seat through the App, at one step you are being forwarded from the App to the Website, where you need to select a trip ("Step 2 of 2"). Even though I selected a trip, I cannot continue oftentimes. There's just no button to continue!?
Ok, I double checked now and I need to scroll to the very end of the page multiple times. So I need to scroll down to the end, then scroll down to the "next end" (where nothing appears but the "Our partners include" footer with logos), and when I release my finger, the "Done" button suddenly appears out of nowhere. This is very confusing! Maybe too many scrollable <div> html elements within each other? I don't know if this a browser problem, but please try to fix it. (I use a OnePlus 3 "A30003" on Android 7.1.1 and use Vivaldi 5.0.2498.20 if that helps).

 

W4: When trying to book a seat via https://travel.b-europe.com/Eurail-GE/en/booking-tgv , this is not possible for TGV connections from Germany. TGVs depart in Karlsruhe (and I think also Stuttgart and other cities as well), but when entering them, the page says “No matches for your search query.” The cities are found when searching them on https://travel.b-europe.com/ , but this doesn’t help me with my Interrail pass.

 

W5:  ← I don’t know what smiley this is, it’s just a box when writing this post.

 

Concept of Interrail in general:
C1: Why is there only one outbound and one inbound trip from/to my country of residence? This looks like nonsense to me. What if I want to make two summer holidays, one week in France, one week in Poland with one week at home in between and I buy the Interrail ticket for this purpose. Can I even pass my country of residence (e.g. Germany) if I travel Germany -> France -> Poland -> Germany? Or do I need to make a "detour" over Switzerland, Austria and Czechia for the Interrail ticket to work? This is certainly unnecessary and stupid.
--> If there are reasons for this, get rid of them! (or at least explain them to the user)


C2: Why are there even two completely separate websites "interrail.eu" and "eurail.com"? I get that it's cheaper for people living in Europe but what a waste of resources for all your developers and marketing guys!
--> Just add a checkbox "I am a resident of Europe" in the booking process and add call it "Global Pass (European)" and "Global Pass (International)" or so. Also include a simple table on the website with the number of days to travel in how many months, number of countries to travel in and weather or not you're a European resident and everyone is able to compare prices on one page quickly. (I can send an example in case you're interested)

 

Pricing:
P1: Try to make interrail cheaper in general. Easier said than done, I know. Avoid unnecessary stuff and benefit and focus on train travel. Make things work properly so you have to spend less on support and convince people of your service so they tell their friends and they are your next customers. Maybe also the EU wants to support you guys financially more than currently? (Fit for 55 and so on, there's a strong ecological and unfortunately now also a political interest to reduce emissions and avoid fossil fuels.) How can it be that kerosene is tax free when people have to pay a high VAT to travel by train?


P2: Avoid costly seat reservations (or make them cheaper than 10€ per train). And even more important, avoid this stupid 4€ booking fee! This neocapitalistic piecemeal strategy makes me so aggressive and reminds me of bookings made in the US in general. A dollar here, a percent more there, another booking fee here and in the end you pay twice the price that you saw upfront. If I buy a 246 € ticket which claims I can use it to travel 4 days within one month, then I want to do exactly that what is promised! I don't want to pay a total extra of 56 € (no joke!) to use the trains I wanted to. This is borderline fraud. Seriously, if your marketing manager tells you to do such sneaky things, disagree with him! They make the world a worse place.
--> Remove seat reservations completely or at least make them as cheap as possible, e.g. 5 €.
--> Remove any booking fees that come afterwards completely. If you need the money desperately, make the price of the Interrail ticket 10€ more expensive. Almost nobody will notice.
--> Also remove the fee for the paper pass. If you want people to use your app, improve it first and then make interrail tickets 10€ more expensive and give app users a 10€ discount (i.e. they pay the same as they do now). People hate it when you take away but they love discounts.


App:
A1: Make booking of seats possible through the app. This is not possible at least on my journey with TGVs through France.

A2: Explain things in the App and make it as easy to understand as possible to newbies. I know many things are somewhere in the FAQ or even in the mail with the tickets but almost everyone receives too many mails to read them all in every detail, so just try to make the app self-explanatory in the first place, e.g.:
--> I remember I was very scared to press the "activate" button after adding the ticket. "Does it mean my first day is used now? I better not press it but wait until the day I travel.". E.g. add a gray text below the button that explains you need to activate the ticket to plan the trip and add bookings (if this is true, which I guess it is) but this doesn't mean I have to start my journey now when pressing "activate".
--> add the "passholder number" / "Pass Cover number" in the app

A3: Add an option to add (externally booked) seat reservations in the app. E.g. I got 5 pdfs with 6 tickets from SNCF which I all have to print out or keep on my phone. Would be nice if it's possible to scan the code and add it to a trip so everything is at hand easily.

 

To be continued... My journey didn't even start ;)

Best regards,
Matthias


@Jody , @Nanja , @rvdborgt : Feedback for Interrail/Eurail System, Website, App

Dear Interrail/Eurail team,

This year we tried the experiment to avoid planes and cars for our summer holiday outside our country of residence. This is my first time buying an Interrail ticket and so many things went wrong even before the trip that I decided to share my feedback as a new customer for you to improve the service. There is a desperate need to improve it, especially if you as an Interrail team not only try to make money but try to improve travelling through Europe and to improve the offer in order for more people avoiding cars and planes and riding trains.
Of course you can just ignore this and throw it into a trash can - in the end it's just feedback - but I beg you to try to improve the whole concept, system, website and app in order to make train travelling a better option than flying or taking a car. I don't need justifications for any of the points, just see this as free consulting.

Dear other travellers: Feel free to add your amendments/suggestions/comments for these points.


Booking reservations:
B1: rURGENT] Give mobile pass users a "passholder number" / "Pass Cover number" or make travel.b-europe.com work for users of a mobile pass! Seriously, soooooo many people have the problem that they can't book their ticket on travel.b-europe.com because you don't have that number when booking a mobile pass. The solution is not that every single mobile pass users that can't book on interrail.eu for some reason desperately searches for a solution for hours and wastes time of his or her and your support team!
If you are a traveller and have the same problem, please call the booking hotline of the train operator, e.g. call SNCF if you want to ride a TGV in France. They will help you to book a seat, although a bit more expensive.

Totally agree that Mobile pass user should get a PassCoverNumber or the mobilepasses should be accepted on the Websites like Sj.se or Travel B Europe.


B2: Try to streamline the booking process when being forwarded from interrail to travel.b-europe.com:
--> copy all user information (destination, arrival, date, time, travellers) like it is done when being redirected from the app to interrail.eu
--> try to make booking via travel.b-europe.com superfluous (I read of many users that couldn't book their TGV seats because they seem to be booked out, which they are certainly not if they can still be booked via SNCF, and they had to use travel.b-europe.com) because interrail.eu said "Prices unavailable"

Yeah still an issue i don´t know how Interrail is connected with the French booking system but it looks like there IT-department should it improve :) (I know they are working on it.)


B3: In the app (planner/my trip -> "How and then to book?") and in forums, it says you can "Book at major train stations" as well. This is not true! I was in a "DB Reisezentrum" at the Karlsruhe main station in Germany today (drove there without success and waited 20 minutes for nothing) and they told me I can only reserve a TGV ticket from Karlsruhe to Paris, but not for any TGV within France.
--> Make booking seat reservations possible through all train reservation offices in Europe
--> Make booking seat reservations possible through all major train station ticket machines in Europe (even in advance)
Atleast you could book it in major station in France. And here you should blame the railcompanies and not Eurail because they make it more and more difficult because everybody wants to sell their own offer (For example the UK announced they would leave the Eurail/Interrail validity area to improve the sales of their own Britrailpasses) luckily they made within 2 days a u turn and stayed in the area)
To get a all European ticket possibilty you should target the Railcompanies and maybe the European politicans because there so many EU Laws to have a EU -Wide standard but there is still non for getting Railtickets :/


B4: TGVs seem to have a "contingent" for Interrail passengers. Even though the TGVs can still be booked regularly via SNCF for a high price, the same train can often not be selected for a seat reservation at interrail.eu. When calling SNCF, I was able to book seats (though for a slightly higher reservation fee) - it says "INTERRAIL NON CONTINGENTÉ 2ÈME CLASSE - IR01" on the ticket, so this seems to be a loophole through the contingent.
--> Why is there a contingent at all? Is Interrail a proper ticket or is it just a third class discount see-how-you-get-along-you-stupid-victim ticket? If the latter one applies, keep it that way. If not, see how you can improve the situation.
--> If SNCF (and other train operators) refuse to remove the contingent system, please ask them to significantly increase the contingent for Interrail passengers! I wouldn't have bought the Interrail Pass if I knew what struggle it was to book TGVs, how much luck I need to have and which extra costs occur - for my journey, booking via SNCF directly would have been cheaper and much easier (now that I now all the extra fees and the pain)! My conclusion is to avoid Interrail for the future and discourage friends from buying it - is this what you wanted? I guess not.

Thats one more a reason to blame the Companies. Countries like Spain (Renfe), France (SNCF) and Italy (Trenitalia) are the most popular destionations of the Interrail/Eurail and all companies thought they didn´t get enough money out of the sell of Eurail & Interrail passes. Because of that they invented the compulsory reservations and the “conntingend” trains that only have a specific amount. The railcompanies took notice that the tourist often have a fixed plan (and doesn´t travel free as the Railpass is aimed for) and because of that people pay expensive overpriced tickets as they stic to their plans.  My only suggestion stop useing the expensive trains and take the slower regional trains that are mostly reservation free :)

 

Website:
W1: When new users visit your site for the first time, they can enter where they go and a map pops up with the price of the ticket. This is very cool, but it is very confusing in the beginning (and not easy to find a simple answer) that if someone for example wants to visit France but starts in another country (which certainly most people do), most commonly the country of residence, for example Germany, the user actually needs a Global Pass instead of a One Country Pass, which means you have to pick "Germany" as a first "Destination" to get the proper suggestion.
--> directly make clear on the homepage that people who make a trip from one to another country need a Global Pass.
--> make the trip planner map less confusing by offering a "from" field (e.g. "Where do you start your journey?")
--> add this information in the FAQ and in the pop-up that appears after clicking "Show Results" -> "About this Pass", e.g. "One Country Pass xy: ... Only valid when travelling within the selected country. If you want to take a train from anther country, e.g. your country of residence, you need a Global Pass eLink]"

It´s clearly written and during the booking process there is before the payment even a warining about that.


W2: For the "Global Pass", make the information more visible that people only have one outbound and one inbound trip from their country of residence inclusive, e.g.:
--> add this information in the FAQ and in the pop-up in the trip planner map that appears after clicking "Show Results" -> "About this Pass", e.g.: "Global Pass: ... You can only book one outbound and one inbound trip from your country of residence. I you want to leave and enter your country of residence multiple times, you need to buy a separate ticket for this second journey."


W3: When trying to book a seat through the App, at one step you are being forwarded from the App to the Website, where you need to select a trip ("Step 2 of 2"). Even though I selected a trip, I cannot continue oftentimes. There's just no button to continue!?
Ok, I double checked now and I need to scroll to the very end of the page multiple times. So I need to scroll down to the end, then scroll down to the "next end" (where nothing appears but the "Our partners include" footer with logos), and when I release my finger, the "Done" button suddenly appears out of nowhere. This is very confusing! Maybe too many scrollable <div> html elements within each other? I don't know if this a browser problem, but please try to fix it. (I use a OnePlus 3 "A30003" on Android 7.1.1 and use Vivaldi 5.0.2498.20 if that helps).

 

W4: When trying to book a seat via https://travel.b-europe.com/Eurail-GE/en/booking-tgv , this is not possible for TGV connections from Germany. TGVs depart in Karlsruhe (and I think also Stuttgart and other cities as well), but when entering them, the page says “No matches for your search query.” The cities are found when searching them on https://travel.b-europe.com/ , but this doesn’t help me with my Interrail pass.

Here you have once more the problem of the different booking systems :) Belgian Rail (the company behind travel b-europe) conneceted their website with the french domestic reservation system but not with the International one.

 

W5: Unimportant] The Smiley’s of this forum editor don’t work in my browser, I just see boxes with crosses. 😀 ← I don’t know what smiley this is, it’s just a box when writing this post.

Yeah i always struggle because of that quite a lot :) in my posts.

 

Concept of Interrail in general:
C1: Why is there only one outbound and one inbound trip from/to my country of residence? This looks like nonsense to me. What if I want to make two summer holidays, one week in France, one week in Poland with one week at home in between and I buy the Interrail ticket for this purpose. Can I even pass my country of residence (e.g. Germany) if I travel Germany -> France -> Poland -> Germany? Or do I need to make a "detour" over Switzerland, Austria and Czechia for the Interrail ticket to work? This is certainly unnecessary and stupid.
--> If there are reasons for this, get rid of them! (or at least explain them to the user)

Interrail is aimed to explore foreign cultures within Europe and had many years no Inbound Outbound Journey´s. Luckily they added this feature few years ago and maybe they improve it for even more journey´s. The problem is that some Interrailpasses are quite cheap and because of that are used to undermine local ticket offers. Best example was the 3days in one month Global Pass (now 4 days in a month Globalpass). The passes was used in Great Britain and Germany often just for domestic routes. Travelers used on day one their outbound journey to get e.g. from Scotland to London or Berlin to Freiburg and used on their second travelday the pass for the return and never used the 3rd travelday. Because the Railpass didn´t now a peak time or is bounded on a specific train.


C2: Why are there even two completely separate websites "interrail.eu" and "eurail.com"? I get that it's cheaper for people living in Europe but what a waste of resources for all your developers and marketing guys!
--> Just add a checkbox "I am a resident of Europe" in the booking process and add call it "Global Pass (European)" and "Global Pass (International)" or so. Also include a simple table on the website with the number of days to travel in how many months, number of countries to travel in and weather or not you're a European resident and everyone is able to compare prices on one page quickly. (I can send an example in case you're interested)

Because there were some different rules about Interrail and Eurail (the Eurail offer is a few years older as Interrail) if you follow the process of Interrail & Eurail you notice that they more and more make the offer identical. For example this Community for both Interrail and Eurail (before that there were 2 different Facebook groups one aimed for Interrail and one for Eurail)

 

Pricing:
P1: Try to make interrail cheaper in general. Easier said than done, I know. Avoid unnecessary stuff and benefit and focus on train travel. Make things work properly so you have to spend less on support and convince people of your service so they tell their friends and they are your next customers. Maybe also the EU wants to support you guys financially more than currently? (Fit for 55 and so on, there's a strong ecological and unfortunately now also a political interest to reduce emissions and avoid fossil fuels.) How can it be that kerosene is tax free when people have to pay a high VAT to travel by train?

The question is what is unnecessary stuff and which not. There are several railpasses on the market with that Eurail have to competet.
SwissRailPass (covers more as the Interrail/Eurail one Country pass )
TrenitaliaPass (here are the reservations included like in the former Interrail Italy or Spain One Country Premiumpasses) Strange that these premium passes dissappeard as Trenitalia announed their own “Trenitaliapass”


P2: Avoid costly seat reservations (or make them cheaper than 10€ per train). And even more important, avoid this stupid 4€ booking fee! This neocapitalistic piecemeal strategy makes me so aggressive and reminds me of bookings made in the US in general. A dollar here, a percent more there, another booking fee here and in the end you pay twice the price that you saw upfront. If I buy a 246 € ticket which claims I can use it to travel 4 days within one month, then I want to do exactly that what is promised! I don't want to pay a total extra of 56 € (no joke!) to use the trains I wanted to. This is borderline fraud. Seriously, if your marketing manager tells you to do such sneaky things, disagree with him! They make the world a worse place.
--> Remove seat reservations completely or at least make them as cheap as possible, e.g. 5 €.
--> Remove any booking fees that come afterwards completely. If you need the money desperately, make the price of the Interrail ticket 10€ more expensive. Almost nobody will notice.
--> Also remove the fee for the paper pass. If you want people to use your app, improve it first and then make interrail tickets 10€ more expensive and give app users a 10€ discount (i.e. they pay the same as they do now). People hate it when you take away but they love discounts.

Same story as already above blame the railcompanies about that and if you don´t like that just avoid them. Aslong tourist pay that, the railcompanies wont change it. Eurail is on thin Ice between keeping the railcompanies in the System (and maybe get even new countries in like in the last years the Baltic Countries)

About the booking fee yeah it´s quite unfair but i assume it´s for the work that is behind the Reservation System it tooks quite a lot time to stay connected with the different booking plattforms and keep everything working and uptodate.

App:
A1: Make booking of seats possible through the app. This is not possible at least on my journey with TGVs through France.
Yeah totally agree and i know it´s on the bucket list of Eurail to do it in the future. If you stay in this community and take part in one of the user tests that happen from time to time you get an idea what Eurail plans for the future.

A2: Explain things in the App and make it as easy to understand as possible to newbies. I know many things are somewhere in the FAQ or even in the mail with the tickets but almost everyone receives too many mails to read them all in every detail, so just try to make the app self-explanatory in the first place, e.g.:
--> I remember I was very scared to press the "activate" button after adding the ticket. "Does it mean my first day is used now? I better not press it but wait until the day I travel.". E.g. add a gray text below the button that explains you need to activate the ticket to plan the trip and add bookings (if this is true, which I guess it is) but this doesn't mean I have to start my journey now when pressing "activate".
--> add the "passholder number" / "Pass Cover number" in the app

A3: Add an option to add (externally booked) seat reservations in the app. E.g. I got 5 pdfs with 6 tickets from SNCF which I all have to print out or keep on my phone. Would be nice if it's possible to scan the code and add it to a trip so everything is at hand easily.

Great idea would love this feature.

 

To be continued... My journey didn't even start ;)

Best regards,
Matthias

Hi iam not working for Eurail but have my own opionion and maybe comment my own thoughts in read within your text 🙂 I agree in most of your thoughts but the problem is quite bigger and not just Eurail. I can use a similar offer to Eurail aimed for European Rail Staff and if you though that Interrail & Eurail is complicated you never had the experience of the European Rail Staff offer :D
I´am raised with train travel and it´s my passion and yes the offer´s of Eurail are not perfect.

They improve it from year to year and in my time as a “tour guide” for newbies that wanted the safety of a person that knows how the system works and /or didn´t want to travel alone i noticed many great improvements and noticed that not Eurail make it worse. The railcompanies make it worse with changing rules, creating new Railcompanies that then are not in the Railpass System like Ouigo in France, Izzy (low cost of Thalys) or Avlo (the cheap railcompany of RENFE)

Iam sorry for the long text and for your bad experience so far. I like the Idea of Interrail/Eurail and because of that iam here and try to help/assist where i can.

Just as notice @rvdborgt  is no staff of Eurail he is a frequent Interrail user and quite fit with changes arround Interrail/Eurail. and spends his freetime here like many others to help where they can.


@Matthias thanks for the write-up, I don't have a lot to add after what @seewulf wrote.

The most important thing for Eurail/Interrail though is:

Make things work properly so you have to spend less on support

I couldn't agree more. I wrote something similar here, after I was triggered by the subject "user experience”:

 


@Matthias thanks for the write-up, I don't have a lot to add after what @seewulf 

I couldn't agree more. I wrote something similar here, after I was triggered by the subject "user experience”:

 

@rvdborgt

It is not possible to access the link above. Can you please insert the text directly here?


I didn't realise access was limited. Here's my complete text:

I had a look at the ideas in the survey but there are really more important things to tackle first.

For a better user experience, we first need:

  1. Get rid of the bugs that hinder people to use the pass. I had hoped that after the mishap with the 18.1.1 update on 15 July 2021 (after which peoples’ passes just vanished from the app), the testing strategy would have been adapted to prevent something like that to happen again. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case, as we now see with the surge of problems people have with (as it seems) the iPhone versions. There are problems to activate a pass, add journeys to My Trip and My Pass, show the ticket and who knows what else. I've also seen strange things on my Android phone but the app fortunately kept working still. But this makes me very, very nervous for every app update when I'm travelling. I don't feel like I can trust these updates and switched off automatic updates. Also the unannounced requirement change from iOS 10 to iOS 13 is a big problem for users who started to travel and now find their apps have been rendered unusable. Not to mention that the conditions of use still mention iOS 10. Are we going to see the same issue with Android requirements? I'd be very nervous to start travelling with Android 6.
  2. Up to date timetables. There should be at least one update per week or else information just cannot be trusted. Maybe separate the timetable updates from the functionality updates.
  3. Correct information. If you include information about which trains are (not) included in the pass, which ones require a reservation and what the reservations cost, then this information should be correct (in 99.9% of the cases). Unfortunately, I've seen too much incorrect information. I report if I have the time but in any case, I don't feel I can trust this kind of information in the app.
  4. A working reservation module (granted, this is not in the app but still...). Currently, Eurostar cannot be booked, tomorrow it will be another operator (Eurostar can still be booked elsewhere so it's not on their side). And how long will it take before the 20€ reservations in French domestic trains can finally be booked? I have never seen that working in the reservations module over the past year. How often doesn't it happen that the reservations module claims that one leg is not available, while it can be booked without any problem elsewhere?
  5. E-reservations where possible. We know Spanish railways aren't exactly co-operative but for most other reservations, it should not be necessary to issue them on paper. E.g. if Entur can send Norwegian reservations via e-mail, then why can't Interrail? If ČD can issue e-reservations from Czechia to Poland, then why can't Interrail? Etc.
    Edit: SNCF can issue e-reservations to Barcelona, so why can't Interrail?
  6. Less expensive reservations where possible. If you already add a 2€ booking fee per person and train, then why book optional reservations through an expensive provider that charges 6€ per person and train, making the total fee 8€? Why can't optional seat reservations be routed via DB (4€ per person and journey) or ÖBB (3€ per person and train)?

Edit:

improvements in these points will also immediately result in fewer requests for customer support, especially 1 and 4.


Is it not possible for the community to have the option delete a message by posting it?


It would be interesting if points in the Eurail community were not only earned by commenting, but also by purchasing passes, similar to some train companies. Later, these points could be used again when purchasing new Interrail or Eurail passes, much like reward points. 


„Sometimes, you’ll have more than 2 journeys depending on your country of residence. This is because, in some countries, it may take longer than 1 day to cross the border. Once you’ve used your outbound and inbound journeys: you won't be able to add an additional journey to your Pass to travel on trains in your home country.“  https://www.interrail.eu/en/interrail-passes/interrail-mobile-pass/mobile-pass-faq/how-can-I-travel-in-my-country-of-residence-with-a-global-pass

 

Interrail exemplifies a marked inequality in privileges among residents of some countries and granting an uneven advantage to individuals from particular residents. This imbalance may grant residents of certain countries the opportunity for up to three days of travel in both outbound and inbound directions, while others only have two days. Such unequal benefits based on residency appear discriminatory and unjust. It is crucial for the system to aim for fairness and equity among all users, irrespective of their country of residence.

 

For residents of neighboring countries like Germany and Switzerland, certain travel scenarios, such as taking a night train from Hamburg Hbf to Basel BB, departing at 10:07 pm and arriving at 8:10 am, can result in a two-day journey. However, individuals with German residency are unable to benefit from this option since both inbound and outbound journeys would be exhausted in two days, leaving no time for further travel. In contrast, Swiss residents can take advantage of this option and still have one day available for inbound and outbound travel. This inconsistency appears to unfairly disadvantage residents based on their country of residence.

 

Similar issues arise for individuals with residency in Italy or Germany, especially when utilizing services like the ÖBB NJ night train from Munich Hbf to Verona Porta Nova, departing at 8:10 pm and arriving at 5:51 am the next morning for the inbound-outbound journey.

 

It's likely that there are more examples of such cases.


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