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I reserved seats but did not book them, how does offline booking work?

  • 21 January 2023
  • 6 replies
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I reserved seats and tryed online booking, but they told me I was unable to receive the ticket before the date of departure. So I guess offline booking at the station is my only option now. I would like to know if my reservations are safe till I pay at the station on the date of daparture.

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Best answer by Angelo 21 January 2023, 16:47

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Userlevel 7
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There is no facility where any such thing exists. Either you have reservations (which for most countries means you have bought them) or you don’t.

Reservations can be bought at stations in most countries until the day of departure but will be dependent on spaces still being available

 

If you give more details: countries involved, journeys, dates, which sites/apps you have used, etc then we can help further.

Oh to be precise, I did put them in the “MY CART” but haven`t booked them since they cannot deliver me the paper ticket in time. So I was wondering if what I put in the “CART” would stay untouched till I pay at the station. I used EURAIL reservation site, and that`s all I know about the website. I am traveling from Bucuresti to Budapest at night which requires a reservation. Thnx :)

Userlevel 7
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Hi, the reservation system of Eurail is not linked with other reservation systems of railway ticket offices. 

 

In your case I would suggest to go to the next ticket office if you are in Europe now and ask for the reservation of this train. It should be able to sell it every ticket office in middle and east Europe, like MAV, CFR, DB, ÖBB or CD. It is also possible to book the same day at the ticket office, but maybe could be sold out (mostly not the case, but could).

You can reserve online the reservation for the nighttrain from Bucuresti to Vienna. This train starts in Bucuresti at 14:50 local time (you have to search on tickets.oebb.at 13:50 and using the one way ticket option with Interrail/Eurail as discount) and arrives at Budapest at 5:20 in the morning. The other nighttrains starting later and arriving later are not possible to book online having a Eurail Pass. You can book online normal tickets. You could look at mav start website of the website of cfr if seats/couchettes/sleepers are left. 

Thanks so much. However I am not currently in Europe so I better test out my luck

Really appreciate it though

 

Userlevel 7
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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.

Wow that`s some devotion you showed in the link you sent. Thank you so much for your help and thanks for passing by.

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