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Correct Pass Cover Number Does NOT work?

  • 2 December 2022
  • 7 replies
  • 83 views

We have two 1st Class Global Eurail Passes and trying to make seat reservations. 

We are entering the correct Pass Cover Numbers, (E+8digits), on the Eurail website reservation site, BUT the Eurail website response on both is “Pass Cover Number doesn't look right”…..What is going on? The Pass Cover Numbers are correct...we double checked over and over.

Eurail’s customer service is also rather useless…espcially that stupid bot.

Is there any other way to reserve seats on TGV train (TGV9210) and THA train (THA9315) 

I am really finding these very expensive Eurail Passes to be very frustrating.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Jacqui

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Best answer by AnnaB 2 December 2022, 20:44

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7 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +9

What routes are you trying to make reservations for?

There are better ways than than the Eurail website to make the reservations. 

Hi

Thanks for replying - I am trying to reserve on TGV9210 (19 Dec 2022) from Basel to Paris and on THA9315 (21 Dec 2022) from Paris to Amsterdam.

Regards

Jacqui

 

Userlevel 7
Badge +9

The reservation for Thalys you can make here:

https://www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass#Outbound

If you have a mobile pass you need a Pass Cover Number to make the reservation. The PCN you generate here:

https://community.eurail.com/news-and-announcements-39/pass-cover-number-generator-is-live-5653

The international TGVs are expensive and have a limited number of pass holder seats. From Basel you can take a regional train to Mulhouse  in France and then take the TGV to Paris from there. The reservation for domestic French TGVs can be made here:

https://travel.b-europe.com/Eurail-GE/en/booking-tgv#Outbound

 

Thank you for the assistance.

 

Regards

Jacqui

 

Userlevel 7
Badge +9

Good luck with your trip. Just ask again if you have more questions. 

 

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.

Userlevel 7
Badge +9

For Thalys, you can book here:

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

For Basel - Paris, the only online possibility is via the Eurail website.

Other possibilities are listed here (TGV Lyria):

In 1st class, the price of this reservation is an insulting €68 per person though (plus booking fee). It's much cheaper to book Mulhouse - Paris here (€10 or €20 per person) and connect from Basel with one of the many regional trains.

Userlevel 7
Badge +5

@your remark re very difficult etc: as such that is true for THESE lines-well over 90-95% of all trains running here in EUR do not even need any RES-but all those newbees that pass by here every day all want to use exactly just those trains that are the hardest to get. There must be some silly reason for that. And yes, this is not Shosoloza Mel.

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