On the Rail Planner (Eurail app) I have a Global pass and I’m using 1 trip from London To Paris. I have booked it in the app and I have a QR code for my ticket. When and where do I reserve seats so my family can sit together? Do I need to go to the station to book? How far out do I need to reserve?
Thank you for your help!!!
The advice from the experienced travellers in the community is to wait with activating the pass until just before boarding the first train of your travel. So I recommend you to deactivate your travel days and pass. Please read more about that in my next reply.
Regarding seat reservation on the Eurostar, you should make those ASAP. Read more below.
There is a limited number of pass holder seats on the Eurostar between London and mainland Europe. 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
If you don't get any result, press "later trains" and eventually you will find the next available connection.
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
The recommendation from the experienced travellers in the community is to only make reservations through the Eurail website if no other options are available. 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.
Adding a train to the app gives you your ticket but not the seat reservation. You often don't need one but for high-speed trains in France, Italy, Spain + Thalys, Eurostar you do. 30€ per person for the Eurostar (kinda expensive but there are no workarounds)
Check availability and book here (less booking fee than eurail.com) : https://www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass#TravelWish
If you make one booking for the whole family you should be seated together
If there are no available trains for your day, let us know and we'll give you alternatives
The Eurostar is a true bottleneck (limited number of seats available) and can sell out weeks in advance so book it ASAP.
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