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

  • 16 January 2023
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bleusquirrel
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do NOT make any RES early in YOUR day-as the system often translates the time to that still prevailing here in EUR=1 day earlier then. THis may also lead to birthdates in the data that are 1 day off.

This is only true for the Eurail website.

oh no, does that mean when I book seat reservations I should change my time to Europe time first to make sure no mess ups?

Indeed :)

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. 😖

bleusquirrel
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Thanks so much @Schelte :)

Foe the agent in Spain, do you have any to recommend? We haven’t had experience using agent for booking train tickets. My husband used to make reservation at the train station for the rest of his Spain trip while he arrived. I am a bit worried some seat reservations could be sold out if we book seats reservations for the rest of our Spain trip after we arrive to Barcelona. 

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.

For the Paris - Barcelona I think I would book on the Eurail App :)

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

It would be highly appreciated if you know any information or alternatives to get to Morocco rather than the way we planned. I am really struggling to find reliable information online. 😬

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.

Hello @Schelte , it’s me again 😬

I finally finalised the dates and time of the trip in Spain and emailed Andy the agent today. He said he couldn't make the booking for me as I won't be in either UK or Germany before Spain and he only issues paper tickets. I was wondering if you know any other agents that are based in Barcelona, maybe we can pick up the tickets from their office or maybe they can post to our accommodation in Barcelona. (We will be staying in Barcelona from 21-25 April, then take the train to Madrid on 25 April. After that we are going  to Seville on 27 April, so therefore we need to book these two trains. It will be only 4 days before the train to Madrid, and 6 days before Seville when we arrive to Barcelona. We really don't want to not be able to have tickets available when we get to Barcelona and try to book in the train station. it would be a disaster as the rest of the trip have already been booked.😶

bleusquirrel
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Thanks so much for the explanation and advice :) @BrendanDB @AnnaB 

I will change the timezone to CET for the rest of my bookings.

So far I have successfully booked seat reservation from London to Bruxelles Midi for 7th May, and also seat reservations for Bernini Express on 20th May.

Below are the screenshots of the E-tickets I received. Both tickers are showing the correct dates and time. Does this mean these tickets have no issues? Fingers crossed 😥

 

bleusquirrel
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I wouldn’t worry about these reservations too much. Between Barcelona and Madrid are a lot of trains each day, so if you book on arrival in Barcelona, you should be still able to get some reservations…
Also for Madrid-Sevilla… especially as you travel on a Monday and Thursday… this are not the most busy days of the week.

Thank you @MartinM :) fingers crossed there will be seats available for us. 😬

bleusquirrel
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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 :)

Oh thank god for that. I was so worried that these tickets were messed up as I forgot to change it to CET before making the reservations. 
In two days time I should be able to book the Bruxelles Midi to Amsterdam on the same day of 7th May. :) 

bleusquirrel
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But aren’t you in mid of March in München? Actually you should be able to make these reservations for Spain at the ticket office in München Hauptbahnhof…
At least until last year it was possible. So if nothing changed, should be still possible.
Just you need to be lucky to get an experienced employee. If they tell “it is not possible”, you should be insisting that it is ^^.

I have changed a lot of things of the original itinerary. We will be arriving in Paris on 15 April which is our first stop in Europe before Spain, so Paris is the only place we could possibly book our Spanish reservations. Is it possible though? 😬

bleusquirrel
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When you add the trains to your pass you didnt book in reality 

 

Reservations are complete seperate from the Pass and need a own booking if you share details we can advise where to book 

Thanks so much for your reply. When we decided to buy the 3 month continuous Global Pass, we thought we can save and book all our train rides on the Eurail Planner App, hence all the information in the spreadsheet is based on the train rides we selected and saved to the app. We thought we can just turn on the switch on “My trip” in advance as we wanted to book have everything well planned, all the train rides booked, accommodations booked, so we won't feel stressed and also stick to our itinerary. It sounds like the Eurail pass is way more complicated than we thought.

Below is our travel plan with details of each train ride, does that mean we need to book all the trains on the rail companies’ websites individually instead of booking through the rail planner app?

Another question is that we wanted to have all our accommodation booked as soon as possible to secure a cheaper price, but it has to be based on our train rides, would all the tickets be available three months before the travel date? 

Thank you :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

bleusquirrel
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Seat reservations are completely separate from your mobile pass in the app. And you should not activate the pass before boarding the first train of your travel. Please read more about that 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 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.

When you add the trains to your pass you didnt book in reality 

 

Reservations are complete seperate from the Pass and need a own booking if you share details we can advise where to book 

Thanks so much for your reply. When we decided to buy the 3 month continuous Global Pass, we thought we can save and book all our train rides on the Eurail Planner App, hence all the information in the spreadsheet is based on the train rides we selected and saved to the app. We thought we can just turn on the switch on “My trip” in advance as we wanted to book have everything well planned, all the train rides booked, accommodations booked, so we won't feel stressed and also stick to our itinerary. It sounds like the Eurail pass is way more complicated than we thought.

Below is our travel plan with details of each train ride, does that mean we need to book all the trains on the rail companies’ websites individually instead of booking through the rail planner app?

Another question is that we wanted to have all our accommodation booked as soon as possible to secure a cheaper price, but it has to be based on our train rides, would all the tickets be available three months before the travel date? 

Thank you :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seat reservations are completely separate from your mobile pass in the app. And you should not activate the pass before boarding the first train of your travel. Please read more about that 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 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.

Thank you so much for your answer Anna :)

I have already activated our passes as I thought I had to activate them to be able to plan the trip and save all the train rides under my pass and then book the tickets while they are available for sale (3 months before the travel date I suppose). As we have already booked our return flights to Australia, I know our travel dates would be from 15 April to 12 July, that’s why I thought I could activate the pass as we only planned to travel for three months. 

Should I deactivate our passes now or should I keep them activated?

I am worried if I deactivate the passes I won't be able to save the trips to our passes.

Below is the screenshot of my pass:

 

bleusquirrel
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Apart from the link Anna B provided, you can also reserve your seats via Eurail/interrail. A bit more expensive though, since they ask a handling fee per reservation: https://www.interrail.eu/en/book-reservations#/

A nice trip you’ve planned. A had a quick glance at it. Although for some trips I have some suggestions:

Don’t take the Thalys between Cologne and Brussels (when you come from Hamburg). It’s reservation fee is too expensive for a relatively short trip. Take the ICE (only optional reservations) instead or local trains (changing at Aachen and Welkenraedt).

Thalys between Brussels and Amsterdam is also bad value for money with their extortionate reservation fee. Best take the hourly intercity, without any need for reservations. It’s only half an hour slower. Or try to reserve a Eurostar from london directly to Amsterdam (they’re 2 a day if I’m not mistaken).

The route of the Bernina Express is also doable via hourly regional trains, without the need for any form of reservation. Which also means you can get off where you want, if you like a certain environment to take pictures.

Best reserve your train from Kings Cross to Edinburgh via LNER, again mentioned in the reservations link of @AnnaB, or GWR. Seat reservations in the UK are for free (except Eurostar)! Any amount of money that you pay, as a waste.

Spanish AVE’s you cannot reserve in advance, only at the station ticket offices. Best do those reservations on your first day in Spain, so that you’re carefree.

 

Thank you so much for your advice Brendan :)

All the train rides we currently planed are all based on the timetable showing on the Eurail Planning App, we didn't even know that it’s better to book through the rail companies directly. We tried to book either the earliest train on the day or the shortest ride or rides with minimum interchanges. We tried to book all direct trains or no more than one interchanges because we are worried if the first train arrives late, then we won't be able to make it to the next one or not enough time to run to a different platform to change to another train. 

Even the night train on the 3 June, from Venice to Munich NJ236, it’s the only direct night train on the app, but we can’t book it yet until 3 months before the travel date, so I am still a bit worried the timetable could change after our accommodates are booked. (non-refundable hotel prices are cheaper than free cancelation ones)

The train from Luxembourg to Marseille is the only direct train I found on the app that’s why we chose that one even if it’s going to be a whole day spent on the train, and also that train seems only run on a Monday. We had to adjust our plan to add one extra day in Amsterdam to be able to make it to the train.

Also the train on the 16 June from Cesky Krumlov to Ceske Budejovice, on the app it shows only one train without mentioning “Not in pass network” , so we assumed that we can only take the train IC534 at 14:07 as that's the only one doesn't have “not in pass network” written next to.

Some trains in Italy also has a condition for “One Country Pass” holders only, which made our options very limited.

We are so confused of how the Eurail pass works, and didn't want to make mistakes and mess up our entire travel plan. Now I feel like we could be totally wrong with our theory. 😢

bleusquirrel
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I suggest you deactivate your pass. All planning can still be done.

If the validity of your pass has started and you for some reason can't travel, you never know what will happen, then you can't get a refund.

Regarding reservation, some can be made already now and some will be available one month ahead. Spanish domestic trains are the most tricky ones as they more or less only can be made in Spain. 

 

I activated our passes about 8 days ago, can I still deactivate them without affecting anything? Does that mean I can still make bookings on the Rail Companies’ websites with my pass reference number?

bleusquirrel
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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

 

 

Oh no, it seems like I can’t fully trust the availabilities shown on the Eurail Planner APP. I may have to check out all the provider’s websites and readjust our travel plan :(

bleusquirrel
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Wow thanks so much for your help :)

Our entire travel plan is actually based on the timetable from the Eurail planner app. We were trying to make our travel as easy as possible. On the app it we would pick the train with less/no interchange, early morning ones, less travel time, but it only shows the Train number without showing the train operater’s name, do you think we should still do the same with our planning but double check each train ride on the operator’s website and book through them? Or should we check operator’s websites and book all the train rides through them instead of trusting Eurail Planner App?What if we don't book seats in advance (even if most trains don't require seat reservation), and there would be no seats available anymore when we buy tickets at the station on the day of our trip? I apologise for having so many questions...

bleusquirrel
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I always book seat reservations via the national companies (when available). You avoid a booking fee, and most rail companies send some information in case of delays, cancellation, routes changes, which can be usefull.

Just take a bit of your time to read this community made reservations guide carefully. A lot of uncertainty and unclarity will clear up. You’ll also find the different companies listed up :)

Just book your Eurostar trains as soon as you can, and the Paris-Barcelona and your night trains (if already possible). 

 

I just checked London-Brussels, and Brussels to Amsterdam on b-Europe.com, both seats reservations are available for May 7, but on OBB website, for Paris - Barcelona April 17, it shows the screenshot as the below:

I changed a few different date of different months, they are all the same. Which websites are the best for Paris-Barcelona and Venice-Munich? Thank you in advance :)

bleusquirrel
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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 :)

We will be heading to Barcelona from Paris on April 17, then after Spain and Morocco, we’ll be going back to Paris from Barcelona on the 1st of May. Thanks for the advice, I will book these two train rides through Eurail Reservation service :)

bleusquirrel
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do NOT make any RES early in YOUR day-as the system often translates the time to that still prevailing here in EUR=1 day earlier then. THis may also lead to birthdates in the data that are 1 day off.

This is only true for the Eurail website.

oh no, does that mean when I book seat reservations I should change my time to Europe time first to make sure no mess ups?

bleusquirrel
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Looks like it worked! Or the IT support team fixed the issue, but I don’t know of any official confirmation of this.

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

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.

bleusquirrel
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Oh thank god for that. I was so worried that these tickets were messed up as I forgot to change it to CET before making the reservations. 
In two days time I should be able to book the Bruxelles Midi to Amsterdam on the same day of 7th May. :) 

It is not worth the money to take the trains requiring reservations between Brussels and Amsterdam. There are hourly reservation free IC trains between Brussels and Amsterdam. 

Thanks for the info @AnnaB :) Can I still book seat reservation for the IC trains to secure the seats just in case? If so, how do I book seat reservations for the trains with seat reservations not required? 

bleusquirrel
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Oh no, it seems like I can’t fully trust the availabilities shown on the Eurail Planner APP.

The rail planner app cannot book any reservations, not does it show availability. It doesn't have any real time information and it is not updated frequently enough to be reliable. It should really only be used to register your journeys, not for any planning.

But can I still book Paris-Barcelona and return through Eurail website as @BrendanDB suggested?

bleusquirrel
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do NOT make any RES early in YOUR day-as the system often translates the time to that still prevailing here in EUR=1 day earlier then. THis may also lead to birthdates in the data that are 1 day off.

This is only true for the Eurail website.

oh no, does that mean when I book seat reservations I should change my time to Europe time first to make sure no mess ups?

Indeed :)

Thanks a lot, this is a huge help :) 

BrendanDB
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Oh no, it seems like I can’t fully trust the availabilities shown on the Eurail Planner APP.

The rail planner app cannot book any reservations, not does it show availability. It doesn't have any real time information and it is not updated frequently enough to be reliable. It should really only be used to register your journeys, not for any planning.

But can I still book Paris-Barcelona and return through Eurail website as @BrendanDB suggested?

Absolutely: https://www.eurail.com/en/book-reservations#/ (but only when the bookings are open, so from 25/01 CET.)

bleusquirrel
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thanks so much for the info @Schelte I think I’d still try to reserve the seats as it’s a Sunday and also the day after the King’s coronation, so the trains could potentially be busier (my theory could be wrong 😬)

bleusquirrel
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Oh no, it seems like I can’t fully trust the availabilities shown on the Eurail Planner APP.

The rail planner app cannot book any reservations, not does it show availability. It doesn't have any real time information and it is not updated frequently enough to be reliable. It should really only be used to register your journeys, not for any planning.

But can I still book Paris-Barcelona and return through Eurail website as @BrendanDB suggested?

Absolutely: https://www.eurail.com/en/book-reservations#/ (but only when the bookings are open, so from 25/01 CET.)

 

Thank you :) May I please ask why the bookings are open from 25 January? 
Our travel date from Paris to Barcelona is April 17, which is still 92 days away so I tested it with April 15, and I could actually reserve the seats and make the payment. I thought needed to wait for another 2 days so I can make the reservation in Eurail website. But I don’t get it why the bookings are open from 25 January. 😯

bleusquirrel
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Sorry I didn’t mean to offend anyone by the King of UK’s coronation, I just thought it’d be a massive event and maybe some people would like to travel to London and see it. (Just my thoughts 😬) 

Yes I am super worried about the baggage thieves that’s the main reason that we bought the 1st pass instead of the 2nd class to minimise the chance of our belongings/luggage getting stolen. :) 

bleusquirrel
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I also thought the 1st class carriages would have bigger rooms between seats that can leave the luggage right next to you instead of putting on the luggage rack at each end of the carriage. We are so chilled here down-under. I’ve never been pickpocketed once and we just leave our bags on the beach and go for a swim, come back two hours later the are still at the same spot, which make me have less awareness of theft, yeah we’ll definitely have to keep our eyes on our belongings and have awareness. It would be a nightmare if the iphone/iPad with all the train information on gets stolen. 😱

bleusquirrel
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I don’t know either. The mysteries of the SNCF (French train operator) 😅. I just checked their information on the website, but it could be that it’s only valid for domestic TGVs.

Even experienced railers in Europe get a bit lost in all the different rules, systems and perks every now and then ;)

Guess international travel has a booking window that lies further in the future than the domestic TGV’s. I can see prices for ordinary tickets on the sncf app for your travel dates, so I guess you can try to reserve now then, I’m curious. Let us know if it works out :)

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

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