If I choose to travel to a place where I don't need to a reservation seta, will I not receive a QR code? just on time? how does it work, you only receive the QR code if you pay for the reservation and if you don't pay you have to wait to see if there will be any empty accents?
Answer
If I choose to travel to a place where I don't need to a reservation seta, will I not receive a QR code?
Best answer by Yorkie
Interrailling and reservations can be confusing but once understood it is manageable.
The Global Pass is fundamentally a travel ticket for any qualifying train. On each travel day you get a QR code for the day and that is your ”ticket” you show to the inspector. Unlike many travel passes, where the entry and exit scans map your journey, you do need to add all trains to your pass for all journeys before travel - It is recommended you only add the train to the pass shortly before you board.
Some trains require a reservation as well as your ticket, many others have the facility to make reservations, but not having one will not stop you travelling on the train, but there is no guarantee of a seat. Then there are many regional trains where there is no reservation facility - again just board and go.
Your pass NEVER includes a reservation, even if you require one to travel on that train. You have to get those separately, frequently at a cost and details on those are detailed in the previous post.
Some services, such as Eurostar, issue reservations with their own QR code, but this isn’t a QR for your ticket to travel, merely to show you have the reservation. You still need to show your IR QR code as well.
Reservations are separate from the app. Some reservations have QR codes and some don't.
You always need your ticket with the QR code to travel. You get the QR code inte the app when you have connected a journey from your Trip to your pass.
The advice from the experienced travellers is to not activate your pass until just before boarding the train of your travel and to never connect a journey to your pass until you are 100 % sure that you will board the train. 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, 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 allowing you to create the QR code (your ticket), 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.
Interrailling and reservations can be confusing but once understood it is manageable.
The Global Pass is fundamentally a travel ticket for any qualifying train. On each travel day you get a QR code for the day and that is your ”ticket” you show to the inspector. Unlike many travel passes, where the entry and exit scans map your journey, you do need to add all trains to your pass for all journeys before travel - It is recommended you only add the train to the pass shortly before you board.
Some trains require a reservation as well as your ticket, many others have the facility to make reservations, but not having one will not stop you travelling on the train, but there is no guarantee of a seat. Then there are many regional trains where there is no reservation facility - again just board and go.
Your pass NEVER includes a reservation, even if you require one to travel on that train. You have to get those separately, frequently at a cost and details on those are detailed in the previous post.
Some services, such as Eurostar, issue reservations with their own QR code, but this isn’t a QR for your ticket to travel, merely to show you have the reservation. You still need to show your IR QR code as well.
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