How do I pay for the seat reservation fee after the tickets are added to my Eurail pass?

Carriage 32 is in terms of layout the same as carriage 12 (and 22), but is used as number to allow multiple units run coupled together - otherwise you'd have two carriages with the same number (in this case I think it doesn't happen, but that train originates in Marne-la-Vallée instead of in Paris Nord so they do it by default). As far as I know, it is not possible to change the seat selection on Thalys, once they have been assigned.

Hi @Schelte I have just booked seat reservations for Bruxelles Midi to Amsterdam on 7 May 13:22 for the Thalys train. On the tickets it shows carriage 032, however I couldn’t find carriage 032 on the seat map of Thalys train. Do you know if there is an actual coach number 032 or if the 032 stands for another carriage? I tried to change seats by putting in reference number and email address in on Thalys website but I didn't see the options of change seats :( Do you know if there's a way to change seat? Thank you in advance :)

Same counts for the IC when leaving from Bruxelles Midi, you should find plenty of places comfortably.

If there would be an effect of the Coronation, you'll find that on Eurostar and domestic UK trains. Not the rest of Europe. But you reserved Eurostar already so don't worry. 

I'lld still recommend the IC over Thalys. If you feel like it, you can have a nice short visit in places like Mechelen (unknown, but quite quaint) or Antwerp to stretch your legs to fully enjoy the Interrail /Eurail flexibility.

Unfortunately, thieves and beggars also greedily operate in first class too. It's not that that is closed of from the rest of the train. You should be a bit weary of people walking hastily across the train between Brussels-Midi - Central - North.

But one should not over exaggerate the risk of theft too. In bigger cities, wether it'll be in London, Paris, Barcelona, Berlin or Brussels, there's always a risk for pickpockets wherever you go alas. 

For comfort, I lived a long time in Brussels, and I still travel there very often. Never got stolen something once in 15 years :) If you just keep your valuables close to you, check it, keep a good eye on them and ignore the people handing out leaflets on the train or treat them with a healthy suspicion, nothing will happen. Railway staff keeps an eye on it too. 

Not our king that is being coronated, I doubt that will have much effect on traffic between the Kingdom of Belgium and the Kingdom of The Netherlands. The IC does get a bit busier on weekend days, particularly between Antwerp and Rotterdam, but since you're boarding at the first stop (Bruxelles-Midi) you should nonetheless find a spot easily. 

However, I can also recommend the Thalys; it's one hour faster, stops a bit less often (thus also leaving less chance for baggage thieves, unfortunately quite common on the IC) and has a reserved seats for you. Whether that's worth €20 per person is a personal decision (hopefully assisted by our comments).

I travel fairly regular on both, so I have these doubts myself quite regularly (tbf then I'm not travelling with a pass, so the prices are slightly different too). 

The hourly intercity does not allow seat reservations - simply board with the active pass and chose an empty seat. When boarding in Amsterdam there generally should be seats available, particularly in 1st class. 

The Thalys seat reservations on this bit cost €20 per person (+ booking fee), and allows you to reach Brussels in about 1h50 instead of 2h50 with the IC. However, the Thalys reservations are not very flexible: you can change them once free of charge (if there are still passholder seats available) and if you want to cancel them they're only 75% refundable. With the Intercity, you can simply take any train you want.

I booked on SNCB International for the London to Brussels one and Bernina Express was on the official website. I was going to book Paris to Barcelona and Brussels to Amsterdam on Eurail.com, I guess I better set it to CET first before book any seat reservations.

Or the reservations were not booked via Eurail but elsewhere. The Eurail/Interrail websites are the only ones I know that have this problem...

Looks like it worked! Or the IT support team fixed the issue, but I don’t know of any official confirmation of this. So, best set it to CET to avoid any unpleasant surprises :)

There has been reports that overseas travellers, especially from Australia, have had problems with getting the correct date on reservations made through the Eurail website. The solution to the problem has been to manually set the time zone to CET for the device used to make the reservations. 

Hi @BrendanDB I have a question about changing our local time to Europe timezone when making reservations. I am a bit confused about this actually, wouldn't the timetable of the trains based on the local time of the departure and arrival destinations? Why would my time zone (Australia time zone) affect the reservation? I am just too dumb to figure this out and make sense of it. 😖

I have never used an agent, I generally try to book the seat reservations myself to save extra fees. It is however quite a puzzle, and not always possible.

Seat61.com recommends one: “To make Spanish passholder reservations in advance, email andy@railtravelcentre.com, the same rail expert that runs www.discoverbyrail.com. He can arrange passholder reservations in Spain, if necessary even at short-notice.  His normal handling fee is £17.50, but he'll reduce this to £12.50 if you quote 'seat61' in your email.  One handling fee is charged 'per booking', where a booking can be more than one passenger reserved on more than one train.  Remember to tell him if your pass is 1st or 2nd class.” https://www.seat61.com/interrail-and-eurail-reservations.htm#Spain I also know Bart from Triptailor.be offers these too, he charges a booking fee of € 5.45 per seat. There certainly are others that can also offer this.

Good idea, assuming you mean the Eurail website. The Rail Planner app unfortunately does not allow booking reservations (yet).

Unfortunately I’ve never crossed that bit by ferry so I can’t really help you. Maybe someone else has experience with that? I do recall hearing from people that took those ferries that they can be quite delayed due to weather, so maybe your onward connections are too tight.

Seat61 is indeed a great source of information!

I have some comments on some bits of your very nice itinerary, particularly on the Spanish bits.

Using an agent for reservations in Spain can indeed be useful, as they are otherwise hard to make (DB makes them but as far as I know only does them on physical tickets which need to be sent by post or collected from a German train station).

For the TGV's between Paris and Barcelona, SNCF can make them on the phone but it's probably best to indeed book them through the Eurail reservations portal (non-refundable €2 fee per ticket).

I see you've planned to take the Flixbus back and forth from Seville to Algeciras. Rail connections to Algeciras aren’t great, but there’s a daily direct train from Madrid that possibly doesn't appear yet in the railplanner app; possibly easier to spend the night in Algeciras on the way to Morocco (I wanted to suggest a night en route in Ronda on the way to Algeciras, but it looks as if the first train from Ronda doesn't allow reaching the 12:00 ferry to Tangier).

Travelling between Algeciras and Seville by train is difficult, and Seville is certainly worth a visit, so do take the Flixbus on the way back. As the buses seem to stop in Jerez, if you're interested in sherry you might want to get off there and continue onwards to Seville by train (reservation is compulsory)

The day trains between London and Scotland can be reserved for free, so ignore any site that tries to charge you.

Good luck with planning your trip!

Thanks so much for all your help Brendan :) Sure thing I’ll keep you updated how my bookings work out :)