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Cancelling a paper reservation that won't arrive in time

Mark Carter

I made a train reservation for my wife & I from Lourdes to Barcelona.  Two reservations (each) were required for this journey: Toulouse to Narbonne and Narbonne to Barcelona.  I bought these reservations thru Eurail.  When I bought them, I was informed that that the reservation from Narbonne to Barcelona would be MAILED (the other reservation was emailed).  Kind of backwards, I thought, but OK its 6 weeks 'till I fly to Europe (on July 6th), it shouldn't be a problem.  One week later, I get an email saying my ticket has shipped and should arrive ON OR BEFORE JULY 16th, 2022. So it takes 5 weeks for the mail to get from Europe to the U.S.? Hard to believe.  On top of that, I had already paid for the reservation 1 week earlier without knowing this.  So now I've left for Europe without these paper reservations.  Does Eurail or SNCF use computers to keep record of reservations they've sold?  If so, how can I get a copy while in Europe before our train departure?  If the answer is No, what steps do I need to take to 1.) cancel our reservations?; 2.) Get a refund?  I can't find any options for this on the Eurail App..  Thanks, Mark & Dana

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Best answer by AnnaB 6 July 2022, 23:00

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M
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No the mail does not usually take that long, but the overworked and understaffed very few people working in the EUrail office that have indeed manually to reprieve tickets and have them printed on what is called ´safe validated railway paper-or the like´ need their time. Its the utmost burocrazyness: state railways that hardly coöperate, distrust one another and have their systems set up in a way that any possible fraud is prevented. And the sudden boom in travel now that covid is moreorless gone lames about all forms of transit here-airports are choked, trains full to the hilt, staff lacking etc. USA style playing the wiseguy will not help at all.

It would very well have been possible to get e-tix from SNCF by calling them. The many local trains Tls-Narb do not even need any RES. Every day we explain dozens of people in how to do that.

RES for seat only in general cannot be cancelled-with luck and depending on the railway exchanged for another date/time.

A
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Userlevel 7
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You should have been given the delivery time when you paid for the reservations.

 

The question about getting a refund for the reservations from Eurail is all about the promised delivery date.

What delivery date did you get when you make the reservation?

For what date is the reservation?

You can try to contact Customer Support through the form in the link below and see if there is a way to fix this. Write that you are currently travelling.

https://eurail.zendesk.com/hc/en-001/requests/new

I guess though that you will need to buy new reservations and then hopefully get a refund if Eurail thinks that the tickets arrived after the promised delivery date. 

 

What country will you arrive in? There might be a possibility to buy the new reservations in person at a railway ticket office. 

Please note that I don't work for Interrail/Eurail and that I don't reply to personal messages.

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