Greetings,
I have a strange problem finding some trains on the Rail Planner app: i’m going to travel with a companion but we get different results when trying to find some trains.
Obviously we made sure that we set the same parameters and filters, yet I get all the correct trains (first screenshot) but my companion does not (second screenshot). Neither of our passes are activated yet. Could this be a problem with the app or is there something I’m missing?
For some reason one of the screen shots only shows direct trains and not trains with changes whereas the other screen shot shows all trains.
Are you absolutely sure that you don't have a filter active?
Do both of you have the latest version of the app installed?
Do both of you have the same type of phone (Android/Iphone)?
We both don’t have any active filters, we installed the app last week roughly at the same time and we both have an Android phone.
I would say that your friend gets the correct trains and not you. I get the same trains as you, only the direct trains with reservations. There seems to be some problem with the app. If I add the filter "no seat reservation" I can see the other trains. I recommend you to use another website for doing your planning. Please read more about that below.
Here is some useful information from the experienced travellers in the Community regarding both planning, reservations and activation of pass and travel days.
Planning
The rail planner is normally not up to date, as it only is updated once a month, so to be sure of the time table you better check the timetable and availability on the websites of the national railways. The bigger national railways, like DB (Germany) SBB (Switzerland) and ÖBB (Austria) cover several countries.
Reservations
The advice from the experienced travellers in the community is to use other ways to make reservations than the Interrail/Eurail website. You can look at the guide in the link:
https://community.eurail.com/train-connections-reservations-47/how-to-get-reservations-105
If you, after having looked at the guide, have questions about how to make specific reservation, please give your travel details (departure date, time and route) preferably in a new topic, and you will get advice.
Please note that Interrail/Eurail charges an extra fee of 2 EUR per person and train in addition to the fee for the seat reservation.
Activation of pass
During the activation process, when you choose the start day of the validity of the pass, the first day of the validity period is automatically made a travel day, even if you don't enter a journey, the advice is therefore not to activate the pass before the first travel day as you only can deactivate the pass before 00.00 on the day the validity starts. If your travel plans change in the last moment you will loose travel days if you have activated the pass in advance.
It can be wise to make a test and activate the pass with a start date well in the future and then deactivate the pass immediately, just to see that everything works.
Activation of travel day
The advice from the experienced travellers in the community is also never to activate a travel day, that is connect a journey to your pass and create the ticket (QR code), until just before boarding the train, otherwise you might loose a travel day if your travel plans change in a late stage You can't delete a travel day in the past. A travel day can only be deleted until 23.59 CET the day before the travel day
On the SBB app I can see all trains.
Looks like my companion’s app was not updated to the latest release for some reason. Now it’s functioning properly. Thank you all for your time.
Even if you now both see the same trains, the information is not correct as you are missing the reservation free trains that also are quicker.
If you use the regional trains you don't need to pay the 10 EUR supplement (+ 2 EUR booking fee from Interrail if you make your reservation there)
It seems I couldn’t see those regional trains because of the default transfer time of 5 minutes. And I think it’s better this way for me because, while regional trains seem faster, I’m not exactly comfortable with short transfer times. Especially because we are planning to use a night train to reach our actual destination after arriving in Zurich.
As other community members have pointed out, the Rail Planner app is not updated often since it was designed to be able to operate offline. That means that it can't show the latest schedules and last minute contingencies. We do recommend using it in conjunction with another app such as the DB or SBB app so you can get accurate departure info in real time. Alternatively, please consult the relevant carrier's website for the most up-to-date info :)
As other community members have pointed out, the Rail Planner app is not updated often since it was designed to be able to operate offline.
As I've mentioned before: those 2 things are not related. You can have an offline app with regular updates if you want that.
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