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

I can already see that you need to amend your plan. There are no pass holder seats on the Eurostar from London to Amsterdam on the 7th of May. There are pass holder seats from London to Brussels on the 7th and from Brussels you can take the reservation free IC train to Amsterdam. 

There is a limited number of pass holder seats on the Eurostar and on popular departures and during high season those sell out weeks, and sometimes months in advance.

The best place to see the availability of passholder seats and make reservations on the Eurostar is 

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

Press "later trains" and eventually you will find the next available connection. There is a fee of 4 EUR per booking so make all your Eurostar bookings at the same time.

If you have a mobile pass you need to generate a Pass Cover Number in order to make the reservation at b-europe. You do that here in the PCN generator:

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

@bleusquirrelDon’t worry, no stress needed you have a solid plan. The timetable can differ, but not that it will look completely different! It’ll mostly change a couple of minutes, sometimes half an hour. But the broad lines stay in place. It’s not that some connections will disappear completely ;)

And in case of off delays, cancellations and missed connections, also no stress needed. It happens a lot. If you have a seat reservations, it’s the company’s responsability to found another place for you on another train (only valid for trains with mandatory reservations, like in France or Spain or on Eurostar) or they announce the alternatives in the train.

And in 99% of the cases alternatives always exist should a connection fail. And you travel only between very well connected cities and places which are very well connected by train. Only the north of Scotland (Mallaig) sees fewer services.

Only strikes are a bit more annoying, and you should try to work yourself around that. But hopefully you’ll be spared from that.

Alternatives sometimes require an extra connection, or you have a similar connection just an hour later, or via a slower route. But you’ll always get to your destination. For a lot of trains with mandatory reservations, reservation free alternatives exist. Only Eurostar is difficult to avoid. Only for your Eurostar trips you need to check now, and get your seat reservations asap!  They can sell out, and no good alternatives exist. You might also want to get your reservations soon for the Paris-Barcelona too.

Most train companies are very flexible. Train missed? Then you take the next one a bit later. Some countries are a bit trickier, with rigid reservation rules and more limited timetables (like France and Spain). Other countries, like the UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic,... are super easy. You can basically take any train you want, without mandatory reservations.

You just might want to double check your times via the Deutsche Bahn planner, about a month before you leave.

You can use the Eurail pass for 95% of the trains in Europe, for a small percentage of the trains you need seat reservations. And usually that’s on the routes that overseas tourists are most interested in. :) It seems difficult at first, but once you got the hang of it, you will make good use of it. it’s a true pleasure that flexibilty.

And that condition for one country pass users, you can ignore. You have a global pass which is valid and most trains in Italy.

Thanks so much Brendan, I’ll read it now, really appreciate your help 🙂

Eurostar is open to booking for the next 11 months. The TGV’s from SNCF usually opens bookings 3-4 months before departure. Sometimes less. Like now, they’re a bit late (https://www.sncf-connect.com/aide/l-ouverture-des-ventes. Just wait until January 25-26 and you’ll be able to reserve them.

P.S. Didn’t you want to leave from Barcelona to Paris according to your schedule posted above?

And this connection (Barcelona - Paris) is one of the only trains on your trip that is best done via the Eurail reservation service, since all other options involve calling to a number or booking it at the station itself according to the reservation guide :)

This is only true for the Eurail website.

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.

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). 

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!

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.

Hi @BrendanDB I just tried to book Paris - Barcelona on 21 April, the seat reservation is now open I could book the 1st class for 2 people, the cost is 74EUR. The Eurail.com didn't seem to have an option of seat selection, do you know if any other sites offer seat selection/seat preference? TIA :)

Thanks for the tips @BrendanDB and @Schelte :)

Is ringing SNCF the only way to be able to select a seat/seat preference?

If I book the seat reservation through Eurail.com, does that mean I would get random allocated seats from the booking without ringing them?

I also tried to figure out the quickest/safest way to get to Nice from Amsterdam, these two trains seem to have longer time to allow transfer between Paris Nord to Paris Gare De Lyon which is 1h10m, would it be safe to book this train or would it be too risky?

Flight from Amsterdam to Nice on that day would cost 168EUR per person which is a lot more expensive than taking the train. :(

I generally try to avoid switching trains in Paris. An hour is a bit tight, not much buffer in case of delay. And taking the metro/RER in Paris with luggage can be a nuisance.

There’s also 7 connections a day from Brussels to Lyon, often extended to Marseille. Switching in Lyon or Marseille is more convenient as it happens in the same station.

This looks like a good option for you (avoiding seat reservations on Thalys too)

 

Thank you :)

I had a look at Brussels-Lyon-Marseille options, the train will still arrive in Marseille late of the day (after 5pm), we still prefer to go to Nice directly otherwise we wouldn't have plenty of time in either Marseille or Nice. 

Thank you @BrendanDB :) I’ll try on Wednesday and I’ll make sure to set my laptop to CET time :)