Sometimes I see that there are no reservations to Lille but some available to Brussels. If the train is stopping at Lille there seems no reason not to book the reservation to Brussels and leave at Lille. Obviously only if the train is scheduled to stop at Lille, hence the title.
I have just seen this on the facebook group for Interrail for the older crowd. I have no other info but …. I got this email over the weekend....think it may be of interest to you guys!Dear Traveller,We get it.You saw the 50 years of Interrail Promo last May and couldn’t resist the whopping 50% discount (who could blame you?).However, we can see in our system that your Pass has expired. And to reward you for taking swift action and to ensure you can still experience the freedom and flexibility of Interrailing, we have extended your Pass for a bit longer (free of charge).Free extension: You have until 10 July to activate your Pass. And you can use it until the last travel day based on the type of Pass you bought.Let us explain: If you activate your Pass on 10 July, the last day you can travel with it is as follows:1-month Pass: 10 August2-month Pass: 10 September3-month Pass: 10 OctoberNeed inspiration? Why not check out our suggested itineraries like Epic Summer in Europe or Last-minute
A few weeks ago I think I saw a reply that you can now transfer an activated pass without requesting a reset from Customer Services. Is old age setting in and I am imagining things?
Just a simple thanks to the community for their advice in their posts. They have helped no end through a difficult challenge today.Regrettably we had to change next weeks plans from a 5 travel day cross-europe jaunt to a quick dash to Monaco and home (flight and hotel already paid for). Our return home will now be Nice - Lille - London - Leeds, needing those dreaded reservations for TGVs and Eurostar. Because of the advice I managed to book 2 TGVs (1 at 10 euro and 1 at 20 euro) and an early afternoon Eurostar through B-Europe (link from posts) with Pass Cover Numbers (from a link in a post). At several points it looked hopeless with error messages and starting again but we stayed with it thanks to the advice in many posts on regular work rounds.The weirdest was on the b-europe site where it would not accept mouse clicks for selecting entries on drop down lists but would let me select with my touchscreen. That took some time (and a few choice words) to sort.We even managed to get all
After seeing many posts with advice on calculating the value of buying tickets v buying a pass I actually went back over my last pass ( a 10 days in 2 months first class pass) and, using 2023 prices, worked out three options - Pass + reservations, Earliest non-flexible fare for the same trains and the fully flexible fare.The details for anybody to check are below but the summary is - First Class pass plus reservations would cost 663 euros, Early saver fares (No exchange or refunds) would cost 940 euros and fully flexible tickets (the closest to the flexibility offered by a Global pass) would cost 1804 euros.I appreciate this is only one personal itinerary, and in Western Europe, but it may help newbies to see how to do the calculation on the perennial question of pass v tickets.It might also help show how reservation fees add to a typical itinerary. We took many optional reservations so added them in.For the record we took 2 separate one-way journeys with the one pass. PASS
Although not new info, just a reminder that the Spanish government has extended its free travel (subject to buying a pass, refundable if used regularly) on Local and regional (MD/Avant) trains for the whole of 2023. In 2022 these were available to tourists, and I haven’t seen anything different yet. There is also a 50% pass available for Avant/AVE services, but I think I heard this is off the full price so early booking fares may still be cheaper if you PAYG, not using a pass.So anybody planning trips to Spain may find local and MD trains crowded. Also this may change the way you travel with a Global pass, since the Barcelona to Port Bou train is included in the scheme and Barcelona has many Rodalies services and I expect MD trains as well.Info on the 2023 offers is still sparse, but the details of the 2022 scheme is available via the Renfe Cercanias app. They are called Abonos Gratuitos.In 2022 you simply needed to register with Renfe and buy the pass, either in advance or at a statio
I make no secret that I am a senior who only recently found Interrail. After a lifetime of travelling for both leisure and pleasure by air/road and cruising I am now a convert to using Interrail to create land cruises.Nor do I apologise for raising this conversation subject to a community that in general is phenomenally supportive and made my first Interrail trips a pleasure.I enjoy adding contributions to the community from the perspective of a “Hybrid” user i.e. one who sees real pleasure from blending air and rail elements in my travels, not least because I live in the UK and ferries are not my thing.Rail via LNER and Eurostar is OK but that always starts me in Belgium or France and costs in time, reservations and hotels. A cheap flight to Sicily or Poland etc allows me a much more satisfying experience than UK/France/Italy out and return by a similar routing,and allows me to extend my budget.I, along with one other member, are being routinely attacked as “frequent flyers” or simila
Does anybody have a link to any sort of guide for IR/Eurail travellers on what to do if you miss the last train of the day because of a cancelled or delayed train? I know it is supposedly the responsibility of the operator of the delayed train, but if the train has many passengers in the same situation and only one member of staff on duty (or even zero staff) what do you do?What can you claim for and from who?Do you have to stay calm and wait for them to attend to you or can you go and get a taxi or book a hotel? What food will they cover? I know IR/Eurail do give some return for delayed and cancelled trains but, when they say no claims for payments of less than 4 euro will be paid, that clearly shows the payment will be a pittance. It is simply a proportion of your pass cost, not reflecting the retail ticket price, and that they will forward any other costs to the carrier.https://www.interrail.eu/en/support/delay-compensationhttps://www.interrail.eu/content/dam/delay-compensation-doc
Can anybody definitively confirm that IC trains in Italy do or do not require reservations for pass users?My experience a couple of months ago was my reservation was checked. Interrail planner says reservation required, but on here and Facebook several experienced contributors say they are optional.Italiarail - Trenitalia’s official partner also says reservations are required. I am always concerned that Newbies get the correct information as on board. It is no good saying “I thought...” or “ I was told by …...”, when they have the uniform and the rule book on their side.
After reading many posts from newbies asking whether a Gkobal Pass was cost effective I put my mind to my experience this year with a First Class senior 10 day in 2 months GP.As a numbers nerd I wondered how my travels had worked out, so I did a worked example based on the same trains but about a month from now and with a pass bought today. Choosing a midweek day (Wed 14 Dec) I did a small spreadsheet of individual journeys and first class saver (No flexibility), first class advance flexible, same for second class, and pass at todays prices and reservations. The details are below but simply put:Pass costs (First Class sen and reservations - at todays prices) 581 euro.Lowest cost saver tickets - 1050 euro Pre-paid flexible tickets - 1726 euro So savings were at least 470 euro pp but against flexible tickets the saving was over 1000 euros.For those wishing to analyse further here are the workings:All prices are from normal operator sites.The Trip involved these travel days and their prep
Just an idea that might help Interrail users. We live about 400 km from Southampton and have cruised from there a few times. We are considering using an Interrail Global pass in conjunction with our next cruise and the numbers seem to compare with the alternatives of driving and parking or flying from local airport.To travel by peak time trains would be extortionately expensive or inflexible, but allows unlimited luggage and avoids a long drive.A four day pass would be just over 200 pounds and no UK res costs.2 UK days and then 2 days of tickets to use in ports e.g. Lisbon to Sintra or Le Havre to Paris. Compared to cruise excursions this saves another couple of hundred pounds.
Just picked this up on Facebook forum.https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/49-euro-ticket-coming-german-states-agree-9-euro-follow?fbclid=IwAR3JaG4cY-IWXs1Ev2cWSeuA3vh19d2cMMNzDIqoIcn-O49wQS65twHCMfg
Anybody visiting UK (or using inbound/outbound days) and intending to use the East coast line operated by LNER a reservation is strongly advised and at busy times may be compulsory. These are available free of charge at any UK station or can be pre-ordered from the LNER site if you set up an account, During booking the reservation it asks for a ticket reference but the system accepts a 0 and you simply declare you have a valid ticket.LNER operate from London Kings Cross which is adjacent to the Eurostar St Pancras terminus. Trains go to York, Leeds, Durham Newcastle and Edinburgh (and a few beyond).
I plan to use a 3 month pass next year for several excursions to the mainland. One of them is to meet up with a cruise in Italy. We will be travelling over Easter so flights are high, and after all the issues this year with limited availability of Eurostar it is a risk that all reservations for Easter will disappear quickly, leaving me with a dilemma we have seen several times this summer.So I wondered what the cost of buying a ticket would be when you buy ahead.I was amazed that not only were the prices for my target date already listed I could buy them. The cost of a journey from London to Brussels was only £52 in standard. Compared with the prices of E* reservations of £30 to £40 it .was a small premium to pay for the security of our journey.We will still use our pass to get to London and an onward from Brussels.A quick scan of returns to the UK show similarly priced trains also available..I have no doubt these prices will change (upwards) as we get into the next year
Just for advice:We plan to travel from Nuremberg to Brussels 26 August 1st class. Although reservations are not compulsory I thought I would check availability on DBbahn. I was amazed that the journey was showing as high demand so decided to see how many seats available. The ICE from Nuremberg was already about 70% booked and the ICE from Frankfurt was about 80% booked and few pairs of seats available. 11.80 euros later we have reserved seats on both.Alternative later trains showed low demand so I guess it is only peak trains that may be full, but always worth checking.
Is the low-cost plane model is coming to a railway near you, to compete with or even replace National operatorsThere are now 2 new competitors to Renfe on main routes in Spain, part operated by Trenitalia and SNCF.SNCF now operate some TGV routes as Second Class only Ouigo brand ( via a shell company I believe).I have read of some trains in Czech Rep (I think) operated by Arriva.Most of us will have seen Italo trains in Italy.And so on…..Many of these are outside the pass network .and offer low cost fares.Many of these are owned at least in part by national operators (SNCF even operate in France as a competitor to itself).Most, if not all, of these do have alternatives in the pass network, but is that enough to keep us interrailing?For Newbies this will cause even more confusion, getting worse not better.For regular interrailers, particularly those who like to go in a free from schedule way, is it an issue that you are finding causes you problems.Or is pay as you go rather than interra
We have just returned from a long weekend in Monte Carlo, but couldn’t find any E* from Paris. We could though find a couple of options from Lille.A local train from Monte Carlo to Nice Ville in good time for the morning TGV to Paris Gare de Lyon.Then a RER transfer to Gare de Nord took about 30 mins for late afternoon TGV train to Lille (Connection time was 1 hr) Only stressful time was getting a ticket for the RER - easy once I got to the front of the queue for the machine.A mid centre 4* hotel and an excellent evening meal at on of the many Brasseries within 10 minutes walk ( a little expensive I admit).Then we had the morning in Lille centre, including an excellent Breakfast in another of the great Brasseries at half the price of the hotel.We then walked up to Lille Europe (via EuraLille shopping centre) - about 15 mins walking plus time in EuraLille for a coffee and a dash around Carrefour. Check in for 1335 E* started at 1230 and was a bit slow for passport checks but otherwise e
I have just read that Trainline will be offering tickets for a new high speed service in Spain operated by Iryo at cheap prices. It is part owned by Trenitalia but I assume Interrail passes will not be accepted - does anybody know? https://iryo.eu/en/we-are-iryo-en/ Also SNCF announce a twice daily Alicante - Madrid service under the Ouigo Espana brand.
I have just been checking my E* reservation (Bru - Lon) for later this month and noticed that it is exchangeable before departure for a small fee. I had assumed it was non-exchangeable.So I now assume that means if I am travelling and running late I could change to a later train.Has anybody experienced this and know how to do it?
Whilst checking a few options recently I have seen some UK trains requiring reservations. The latest was when I was doing a check on a UK planner for the recent question on Holyhead to London. There are a few direct trains operated by Avanti and they clearly say a reservation is required to travel on those trains. I have also seen some LNER trains with the same requirement on the Interrail planner.
Looking at a few future journeys in Interrail web train times planner. I have just seen some journeys with a 1max, 1 change message.I am sure it should be obvious but what does 1 max mean?
Having seen how difficult it is to get to Lisbon from Madrid has anybody tried Madrid to Seville then 3 hrs bus ride to Faro?Regular trains then to Lisbon take about 3hrs.
To all those who ask the question "what happens if I get onto a train with no reservation if it is mandatory".Currently on EC84 Bologna to Munich. A couple with passes but no reservation told to pay full fare or get off. No argument and no offer to allow retrospective reservation.Pay or get off. Two travellers now currently stranded in the Brenner Pass.
At last after 2 years we get to use our pass.Plans made moths ago reservations via IR, Oebb and DB as soon as available and app tested and disabled until today.Flew to Catania from UK and 2 nights in Syracuse. Printout of reservation for 1010 for Syracuse to Salerno in hand and passes activated. Journey added from trip.We boarded and set off on time. Ticket inspector scanned passes and looked a bit lost. Came back with colleague and asked to see tickets again. Started to reopen app and then he saw the reservation printout on tableImmediate calm and off they went.Highlight was the last boat train crossing in Europe.8 hours plus and arrived bang on time.
Having seen a spate of issues on country of residence I suggest the application form is modified slightly:By default your country of residence should be the country in the address you register on your application.The form could then prompt with a message“The country of the address you have registered will be used as your country of residence. You are only allowed to use your pass in this country on any 2 travel days during your pass validity. after activating. to aid outbound and inbound journeys.”Optional - (You may need to provide further evidence of residency during travel if your Passport/ID is from a different country. This can be any document with your name and address in your country of residence from a bank or government agency.)Do you agree to this Y/N .If No we will use the country of issue of your passport.”That would solve many issues we constantly read about including removing many of the issues people have with the confusion between country of citizenship and country of
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