Hi,
I put my pass for my friend and I into the app. We used a travel day from Bruselles to Vienna (Austria).
It tells us that “seat reservations required”. We can see a QR CODE but we don’t understand how to book our seats . HELP US please it’s really difficult to understand this app and be helped by interrail …
Thank you in advance,
Manon & Héloïse
Best answer by BrendanDB
The Ticket is your QR-code. Don’t generate this until you’re very sure you’re taking the train. I always wait until I effectively see the train before generating the QR-code in my pass. You never know if your plans change. Now you can still delete that travel day. But once the travel day has started, you cannot delete it!
Some trains require mandatory reservations, especially night trains, Eurostar and long distance high speed traffic (TGV, AVE and Frecce trains). You just cannot show up and board the train with a valid qr-code then. You will need a reservation, which mentions the exact train, which carriage and seat you have been allocated (or bed in case of a night train). It comes in a pdf and needs to be shown to the inspector. On night trains this needs to be printed, because your carriage attendent will keep it. If it has been sold out, it’s sold out. You won’t be able to travel as a standing passenger. You will need to find another connection then.
Indeed: all reservations are explained in the link below. Please read this carefully.
Night trains are very popular, and capacity very limited. Chances exist that proper beds might’ve been sold out. In that case, just take day trains to Vienna. It can be done with one switch of trains in Frankfurt from Brussels. I generally find day trains way more comfortable than night trains. Although it’s nice to save up on a hotel day.
And make sure to skip Thalys. A seat reservation for pass holders costs more than their cheapest tickets!
From Belgium I see
AVOID that THalys-its not worth it-take the DB-ICE 1 hr earlier-free (RES optional). You can save that money for the piggybank for your new way too expensive fone.
NJ=NightJet-as has by now told some 123456+ times: find that large overview by seewulf on howtodo RES all by yourself: via nightjet.com, do NOT click seat only-start as buy ticket and add ´discount=pass´ later in. Note that real sleepers are in very short supply and often booked weeks ahead, just a seat (2 or 3 cars with those enclosed comprtmts for 6 where one can even draw out the seats-are 14/15€ extra.
Note that on alternate days there is a direct section from BRU onto Wien=no need to change, but check yourself on which days
+8The Ticket is your QR-code. Don’t generate this until you’re very sure you’re taking the train. I always wait until I effectively see the train before generating the QR-code in my pass. You never know if your plans change. Now you can still delete that travel day. But once the travel day has started, you cannot delete it!
Some trains require mandatory reservations, especially night trains, Eurostar and long distance high speed traffic (TGV, AVE and Frecce trains). You just cannot show up and board the train with a valid qr-code then. You will need a reservation, which mentions the exact train, which carriage and seat you have been allocated (or bed in case of a night train). It comes in a pdf and needs to be shown to the inspector. On night trains this needs to be printed, because your carriage attendent will keep it. If it has been sold out, it’s sold out. You won’t be able to travel as a standing passenger. You will need to find another connection then.
Indeed: all reservations are explained in the link below. Please read this carefully.
Night trains are very popular, and capacity very limited. Chances exist that proper beds might’ve been sold out. In that case, just take day trains to Vienna. It can be done with one switch of trains in Frankfurt from Brussels. I generally find day trains way more comfortable than night trains. Although it’s nice to save up on a hotel day.
And make sure to skip Thalys. A seat reservation for pass holders costs more than their cheapest tickets!
From Belgium I see
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 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.
I agree that the Thalys is not the best option, but would advise booking a seat on the ICE from Br to Koln. These are popular and relatively small trains. Do that via bahn.com for a few euro.
If there are no sleepers left I would stay in Brussels (check out Accor hotels near station - we stayed in the Mercure - not the nicest area but not a bad hotel 10 mins walk from Br Zuid. Then the early ICE to Cologne and Frankfurt, then onto Vienna for early afternoon. These are reservations optional.
+8I agree that the Thalys is not the best option, but would advise booking a seat on the ICE from Br to Koln. These are popular and relatively small trains. Do that via bahn.com for a few euro.
If there are no sleepers left I would stay in Brussels (check out Accor hotels near station - we stayed in the Mercure - not the nicest area but not a bad hotel 10 mins walk from Br Zuid. Then the early ICE to Cologne and Frankfurt, then onto Vienna for early afternoon. These are reservations optional.
If you leave from Brussel-Zuid/Midi it's very doable without seat reservation (if you travel alone or with 2), especially the early one. Since it's the starting station, it's usually at the platform a bit earlier. If you come 10-15 min earlier there's always free seats. The train can get a bit crowded from Aachen on. With a bigger group it's indeed advisable to reserve if you want to have a table seat or a little, secluded "abteil" (coupé) for your group.
Tip: when travelling without reservation. Head to carriage 22 (When travelling 2nd class), that one has always plenty of non-reserved seats. They always fill that one up the latest.
Tip: when travelling without reservation. Head to carriage 22 (When travelling 2nd class), that one has always plenty of non-reserved seats. They always fill that one up the latest.
Indeed, I've also noticed that. No idea why it's 22 but it's just like that.
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