Hi dear Interrail Community,
I have a question regarding the seat Reservation. Does an not taken Reservation still take one Day off my interrail pass? Or does it only count as one Day of my pass if I really take the train?
Thanks for your answers !
Hanna
Reservations are not linked to passes.
It will use a day if you have the day activated on your pass after 00.00 on the day so make sure to have future days deactivated until you are sure you will be using them.
All days (00.00-23.59 CET) when you have connected at least one journey to you pass will take a travel day. Also the start date of the validity will be a travel day, even if you don't add a journey to that day. The actual train ride has no effect on the use of travel days. It is the journeys that you add to your Trip and connect to your pass that use travel days.
This is why it is important to not active your pass until just before boarding the first train of your travel and also not to activate travel days in advice. Please read more in my next reply 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, 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.
Reservations are totally separate from your pass/travel ticket.
When you make a reservation it is simply that, you have reserved a seat on a train that you have a separate ticket for (Your pass)
Your pass is where you register the train you are going to travel on. This does not make a reservation so if a reservation is needed you do it separately before travel, usually online or at a station in the relevant country.
To create your travel ticket , you add any trains you intend to travel on to the section of your app called my trip. This can be done after you add a pass but before you activate your pass. (There is only one trip per pass - it covers all journeys taken during your validity period)
Near your first departure you activate the pass and, ideally just before boarding you then add your first day trains from your trip (or manually if the train is not in your trip). That generates a QR code that is your ticket to travel for all trains you add to the pass for the full day. Extra trains can easily be added to your pass as you travel
So if you do not travel on a train you have a reservation you simply lose the fee paid. Just delete the train from the pass and add any alternatives you travel on that day.
HOWEVER please note that you cannot cancel a travel day after 23.59 the previous day, hence the advice to only activate your pass on your first day of travel and only add trains shortly before boarding. If you remove all trains on a created travel day in your pass after 23.59 the previous day you will be unable to delete the travel day and therefore lose it.
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