Our Eurail passes were bought by our travel agent. Once we got our pass number we followed the instructions to download the app, add all our passes, create a trip etc. This all seemed to work and the app does seem to show our “tickets”. What we now need to do is reserve our seats. All online advice/direction points you to several options including in person at train stations, by phone direct to train company etc. We would like to book our online (Eurail website) which we understand is completely separate from the app - we login to Eurail, go to book reservations, added a trip name, and got stuck at adding travellers to the trip - it will not allow us to - it says “Details don’t match” when we add Last Name and our Pass #….we KNOW they are correct, because the App let us set up our tickets with no issue.
I have seen several posts on this issue but the only real resolution I saw was that Eurail had to do something to fix this on the backend!! Can someone help?
PS - I have gone directly to local train websites but not all of them have ways to “reserve a seat” - so not sure how great getting this Eurail pass is going to be
Details don't match error
Best answer by rvdborgt
I have confirmed that we have a Mobile Pass. Our itinerary also states that we can book all of our seats via the Eurail Mobile App - all info in this community says that that is not true. Just want to make sure I am not missing something. Should we be able to reserve seats directly in the App?
You can't book reservations in the app. It just forwards to some of the websites where you can, including the Eurail website.
Online, Basel - Paris can only be booked via Eurail (+2€ booking fee per person and seat).
By phone, you can also book via NS (don't forget the country code +31) or SNCF (Press #85 for English). In both cases no booking fees and reservations are sent via e-mail.
If you look at the advice from the experienced travellers below there is information about how to make reservations. If you have questions about specific reservations you need to make, just ask for help.
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 ticket 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, 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.
Where will you be travelling?
Eurail covers 33 countries and through the website you can make reservations for 19 of them, according to Eurails own information.
Thanks AnnaB - I have been looking at all of these links and trying to figure it out. I would be more than happy to pay two Euros more to have all our seats reserved on one website rather than have to go to each train companies website. My issue right now is that Eurail will not even let me add travellers to my trip - have you seen this issue before? any fix?
beyond that, I did go to the Italian OBB site and looked at reserving a ticket from Rome to Venice and it looks like there are NO seats available to reserve on the date I need. I looked and there are tickets still available to purchase on these trains, just nothing left for Eurail holders I guess! I scrolled through all the trains for multiple days and all of them say “ticket not available” - does this seem right? travel is early August so maybe the trains are all full already which is going to cause us some real issues.
here is a screen shot of the form to add a traveller - we are adding the Last Name and Pass Number exactly how it shows in our itinerary from the travel agent….now, it says “add a traveller with a Mobile Pass” which I believe that we have….but how do I make sure?
beyond that, I did go to the Italian OBB site and looked at reserving a ticket from Rome to Venice and it looks like there are NO seats available to reserve on the date I need. I looked and there are tickets still available to purchase on these trains, just nothing left for Eurail holders I guess!
That can't be true, since domestic trains in Italy don't have pass holder quotas.
Most probably, you used the "Seat only” option, but that doesn't work. Add the "Interrail / Eurail” discount and then look for normal tickets.
I have confirmed that we have a Mobile Pass. Our itinerary also states that we can book all of our seats via the Eurail Mobile App - all info in this community says that that is not true. Just want to make sure I am not missing something. Should we be able to reserve seats directly in the App?
beyond that, I did go to the Italian OBB site and looked at reserving a ticket from Rome to Venice and it looks like there are NO seats available to reserve on the date I need. I looked and there are tickets still available to purchase on these trains, just nothing left for Eurail holders I guess!
That can't be true, since domestic trains in Italy don't have pass holder quotas.
Most probably, you used the "Seat only” option, but that doesn't work. Add the "Interrail / Eurail” discount and then look for normal tickets.
thanks for this - it gives me hope as you are correct i selected Seat Only - I went back to OBB and can’t see where I add the "Interrail / Eurail” discount - appreciate your help
beyond that, I did go to the Italian OBB site and looked at reserving a ticket from Rome to Venice and it looks like there are NO seats available to reserve on the date I need. I looked and there are tickets still available to purchase on these trains, just nothing left for Eurail holders I guess!
That can't be true, since domestic trains in Italy don't have pass holder quotas.
Most probably, you used the "Seat only” option, but that doesn't work. Add the "Interrail / Eurail” discount and then look for normal tickets.
thanks for this - it gives me hope as you are correct i selected Seat Only - I went back to OBB and can’t see where I add the "Interrail / Eurail” discount - appreciate your help
FOUND it - working on it now
thank you so much
NOW I am stuck on the SNCF (TGV) booking - I am on their website but see NO place to add Eurail pass (I think they call it Interrail)….any advice? I am booking from Basel to Paris.
You did not read enough-it is simply NOT at all possible to RES directly online on SNCF.
Have to call them-or use ither ways-and no, there is no sneeky bypass like for ITaly.
Aslo_ for IN Swiss hardly anyone REServes local domestic trains-thats more for groups etc.
Also: Direct from Swiss-also Basel, to P cost an awful lot extra-easily avoidable by using TGV from next stop-Mulhouse-or even Strasbourg=means many more options too. Get there by local train.
I have confirmed that we have a Mobile Pass. Our itinerary also states that we can book all of our seats via the Eurail Mobile App - all info in this community says that that is not true. Just want to make sure I am not missing something. Should we be able to reserve seats directly in the App?
You can't book reservations in the app. It just forwards to some of the websites where you can, including the Eurail website.
Online, Basel - Paris can only be booked via Eurail (+2€ booking fee per person and seat).
By phone, you can also book via NS (don't forget the country code +31) or SNCF (Press #85 for English). In both cases no booking fees and reservations are sent via e-mail.
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Details entered into the fields to add passes are all case sensitive. Please ensure that you use the same cases that your travel did when purchasing the passes. You can follow the reservation advice from other travelers noted in this thread. You can also find alternative reservation methods that is listed per country over here.
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