I cannot make a seat reservation for SNCF

  • 20 July 2022
  • 3 replies
  • 433 views
M

Hello,
It is my first Eurail trip, and I travel with a friend. We have planned to take a High speed train the 24/07 at 6h55 with the pass (ICE 9571). However, since I have activated my pass in may, i cannot make any seat reservation on this specific trip (all of the other reservations have been done normally). I thought that it was because we could only reserve few days before the travel on this train. Yet, it is still not possible and I start to worry (knowing I have to take it in 4 days), wether I will be able to start my trip with my friends or not.

I have seen that some people were provided a pass cover number, like a miracle solution. Therefore how does it work, and how can I obtain one ?

Best regards

Michel

3 replies

M
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +5

ICE trains normally run In DE-can (no need to) make RES via bahn.com-seat only for 4,50.

SNCF-that means INTERnational and these cannot be done online once quota have been taken up for that train.

Since 1/7 there is an option on main page to generate pass-cover-nr for those with mobile pass. 

A
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +9

What is the route of the train you can't make a reservation for?

You should not activate your pass until just before boarding the first train of your travel so my advice is that you deactivate your pass if your trip hasn't started yet. Please read more 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, 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.

Please note that I don't work for Interrail/Eurail and that I don't reply to personal messages.
M

@AnnaB The route is Paris → Stuttgart, it simply doesen’t work, I cannot take a seat only option on neither the sncf site and bahn.de. I thought that the pass cover number would be some kind of a reedeem code to put on the companies website, to not get fully charged for the travel + seat (218 euros), because the seat only reservation is not proposed, it is not an option on both sites, since june.

 

Is it possible to make theses seats reservations in the train station, few hours before the train departure ? Like there would be a quota for online reservation, but guaranteed places if we take it from the station ?

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