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I will be traveling by train in Spain mid-September through early-October. 

I bought my Eurail pass back in August.  I also made reservations for most of the trains I want to travel on using the Eurail website and printed out those tickets.  I can see those reservations in my account on my computer under “Reservations Overview.”

I just downloaded the Eurail app to my phone and activated my pass.  I have some questions about the reservations I made.

  1. Do I need to add my reservations to the Eurail app or are the paper versions good enough?
  1. If it’s a good idea to have my reservations in the app, how do I add them?   When I set up a “Journey,” I select the train I’m going to take as an option and add it to my “Trip.”  How do I indicate that I already have a reservation?
  1. After I add a journey, I get a message that says, “To get ready to travel, tap to add this journey to your pass.”  What does that mean? I haven’t done that yet since I don’t have the reservations included. 

Thank you for your help!

Julie

I will be traveling by train in Spain mid-September through early-October. 

I bought my Eurail pass back in August.  I also made reservations for most of the trains I want to travel on using the Eurail website and printed out those tickets.  I can see those reservations in my account on my computer under “Reservations Overview.”

I just downloaded the Eurail app to my phone and activated my pass.  I have some questions about the reservations I made.

  1. Do I need to add my reservations to the Eurail app or are the paper versions good enough?
  1. If it’s a good idea to have my reservations in the app, how do I add them?   When I set up a “Journey,” I select the train I’m going to take as an option and add it to my “Trip.”  How do I indicate that I already have a reservation?

 

You cannot add the reservations to the Eurail app. Simply use the paper ones and you should be fine. 

You could import them in the Renfe app, but that doesn't always work and isn't really necessary.

  1. After I add a journey, I get a message that says, “To get ready to travel, tap to add this journey to your pass.”  What does that mean? I haven’t done that yet since I don’t have the reservations included. 

 

There's two separate things: reservations and the pass. Aside from making reservations, you will also need to activate the pass for the days that you're travelling, and add all trips you're making (including those you've had to reserve seats for).

Do so shortly before to avoid unpleasant surprises if your plans suddenly change, as travel days cannot be cancelled once you reach the date, and passes are no longer exchangeable once active.

 

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 you choose the start day of the validity of the pass. Once the validity has started it can't be changed even if you haven't travelled. The advice is therefore to wait with activating the pass and starting the validity until the first day of your travel as you only can deactivate the pass no later than 23.59 CET on the day before the validity starts. If your travel plans change in the last moment you can't deactivate the pass and change the validity. 

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.

More Questions

Thank you for all the information.  Now I have more questions. 

  1. There appear to be two kinds of “activation” – one for the pass and the other for trains I take on a travel day.  Is this correct?
  2. I don’t understand how to activate the pass for the days I’m travelling. I read online that I can activate the pass at a train station or get it activated when I place my order by selecting “activate my pass” and including a starting date.  I don’t remember if I chose that option.  When I look at the details of my pass in the app, the dates of my trip are listed under “Validity period.”  Does this mean my pass has already been activated?  If not, how do I activate the pass without going to a train station?
  3. To be clear, the steps I need to follow to add all the trains I’m going to take are to:
  • Set up “My Trip” on the app.
  • Add each “Journey” I plan to take (those that I already have reservations for and those that I have to buy tickets for once I arrive in Spain).
  • After I add a journey, I get a message that says, “To get ready to travel, tap to add this journey to your pass.”  Is this what I do on the day I plan to travel to “activate” a travel day?

OR

  • When I look at the bottom of my pass on the app, it says, “No journey planned yet – Add a journey from My Trip now or use a travel day and add a journey later / Add a journey / Use travel day.”  OR is this what I do on the day I plan to travel to “activate” a travel day?
  1. I bought two passes – one for my husband and one for me.  Once I get everything set up in the app on my phone, do I need to download the app and repeat the process on his phone?

Thanks again for ALL your help,

Julie

You’ll find all of your answers here: https://www.eurail.com/en/eurail-passes/eurail-mobile-pass/getting-started

Activating your pass: you did that already if I’m not mistaken.

Activating travel days is simple. When “My Trip” is connected to an active pas, you can spot a grey ledger next to each journey. Tap it, it’ll turn yellow and ask to activate a travel day. Confirm and you’ll generate a QR-code that will count as your ticket.

As said above, best not activate the pass and the travel day until just before taking the first train of the day. You never know what can happen, and you don’t want to risk losing travel days.

The setup process needs to be repeated yes. But, you can share the content of “My Trip” (your theoretical travel planning) with your partner’s phone.

Only Eurail paper passes without start date have to be validated at the first train station. 

Thank you for these answers!  I had watched the “Getting Started” video, but the names of actions are confusing (e.g., Activation of pass vs. Activation of a travel day, Journey vs. Trip).

I think this is my last question (fingers crossed 😉.

I began entering my Journeys into my Trip and found that the timetable for one of my Journeys is VERY different on the Refre website than the one on the Eurail app.  Renfre says the train leaves at 1:40pm and the app says it leaves at 4:18pm.  In addition, Renfre lists two train companies (AVANT and MD) and the app lists two different ones (AVE and Intercity).

How do I add this Journey to my Trip?  Do I just choose the one with the time closest to Renfre time???

Thanks again,

Julie

I haven’t heard from anyone for two days and we leave Wednesday morning. 

Since this thread has a different title, I’m going to post this question again with a new title.

Thanks for your help Ana, Brendan, and Schelte!

Julie

The timetable on the RENFE site is the most up to date one, so use that.

If you can't find the same train in the planner, you can add it manually. This option comes up at the bottom of the screen when you search for trains.

If you post the exact journey details here, someone can check for you.

THANKS!!!!

Adios,

Julie

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