Solved

How do I reserve seats on Eurostar for 2 families

  • 18 July 2022
  • 4 replies
  • 520 views

Hi,

I am going inter-railing with my son this summer; my friend is also going inter-railing with her 2 children at the same time.  We have decided to do the “first leg” together.  I am trying to book Eurostar tickets, from London to Paris, for all 5 of us to ensure we have seats together.  However, I seem to need to add my friends pass number and her children’s pass numbers to my trip on my mobile app in order to book seats for them.  I’m aware that each pass is only allowed to be on one device, does anyone know if I add my friends pass number to ‘my trip' in order to reserve the seats does that then mean their passes are on my device?  We are not travelling beyond Paris together so I don’t want to end up with them not being able to travel without my phone!

Thanks

 

icon

Best answer by Al_G 18 July 2022, 19:13

View original

4 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +3

You don’t use the app to book seats. It isn’t capable of it.

 

Do not go loading passes onto devices you don’t want them on, you can’t remove them yourself once loaded.

 

First of all check availability on E*, it books out, especially for passholders.

 

Use https://www.interrail.eu/en/book-reservations#/generatePassCoverNumber to get pass cover numbers for all passes.

 

Then use B-Europe to check and book seats if available.

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

 

Also please read this thread for reservation how-to guides:

 

And this guide how to use mobile passes:

https://www.interrail.eu/en/interrail-passes/interrail-mobile-pass/getting-started

Superb, thank you .  I had used b-Europe to find an available train and started to book it but it asked for a pass cover number and said that it was for paper passes only; so I went back to book it through the interail site and it wanted me to ‘add a traveller’ and put in the pass number.  Should I use your link to generate the pass cover number and then book through b-europe?

Userlevel 7
Badge +3

Superb, thank you .  I had used b-Europe to find an available train and started to book it but it asked for a pass cover number and said that it was for paper passes only; so I went back to book it through the interail site and it wanted me to ‘add a traveller’ and put in the pass number.  Should I use your link to generate the pass cover number and then book through b-europe?

 

That is what I would do but you are free to use the Interrail site if you prefer.

I will add that you can alter seat reservations after they are made by using the details provided. Go to Eurostar.com site and you will be able to change your seat to any other available in the same class.

 

Although that means you may be able to book separately and then move to be with your companions I wouldn’t recommend it due to the chance of a particular train booking out between the times separate bookings are attempted.

Userlevel 7
Badge +9

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.

Reply