Thinking of getting an Interrail-Eurail pass and you're trying to be as cautious as possible considering how much money you're going to have to put out before you even get started?? Good for you for checking! Now know this . . . the Interrail-Eurail PASS IS A SCAM!!!!! Here's why. A few months ago my husband & I bought 2 passes. Yes, we read all the fine print. As early as possible on the very 1st day we were allowed to make reservations, we tried to do just that, but shockingly, we couldn't because seats were already sold out!!! How are seats already sold-out when seat reservations had just opened for Interrail-Eurail passes???!!! We tried and tried, but nothing. We read somewhere on the website to go to our nearest train station. That's what we did and were told that only a very few seats are allotted for Interrail-Eurail pass holders. Then, what exactly is the point of selling (from Google) OVER 600,000 passes? I'll tell you what it is. It's simply a devious way to make (by make, I mean steal) money from trusting consumers. How? Here's our example then multiply this by 600,000. We paid 880€. We got a refund of 754,80€. That's 125,20€ that Interrail-Eurail made from just us! Here's another point that illustrates unscrupulousness. As a "handling fee" every refund is charged 14.2275%. If someone has bought a cheaper or more expensive ticket than mine isn't the "handling" of the refund the same?? Again, we read the fine print, but we were "doomed" right from the start of actually getting anywhere both literally and figuratively. Wouldn't it be more honest and moral if in the fine print, it said something like, "Only 5% (if that) of pass holders will actually be lucky enough to win the lottery and be able to reserve seats. The other 95% will contribute 14.2275% of the cost of their passes to our profits and will not be going where and how they planned. Thank you in advance!" Does the media know about this? I don't know. Perhaps they should. One thing I do know is that this is not the only place I'll be posting this comment. SHAME, SHAME, SHAME on you Interrail-Eurail for scamming the public!
Interrail-Eurail PASS IS CLEARLY A SCAM!!!!!
Best answer by BrendanDB
It’s not a scam. The vast majority of the pass holders have smooth and pleasant journeys. Buyer beware, but also buyer prepare for your travels!
It’s clearly mentioned everywhere on the website that seat reservations are a thing.
Many alternatives are given too, with the “reservation free itinerary” options and the “no seat reservation needed” button in the app.
Maybe there was a bug in the website or your app? Plenty of other options exist to get your seat reservation or get to your destination by train.
Instead of voicing your discontent here, you could have asked support about what was going on? Maybe a bit too early? Too late, some works going on, peak period, technical issues,...?
Not mentioning your date, route, destination also doesn’t help your case forward imho and will never give you a satisfying answer...
If you are trying to make a reservation for the Eurostar, former Thalys, there are other ways to travel the same route where reservations aren't limited for Interrail travellers. If you are looking to travel from Paris to/from London, you also have the possibility to travel from Lille instead of Paris.
We were trying to get to many places. None of them involved the Eurostar. The point is that we quickly got nowhere because making seat reservations proved impossible as soon as we were allowed to make reservations. This was a couple of weeks ago. We cancelled our passes, at a loss, and we’re certainly no longer trying to make rail reservations anywhere and never will again with this scam they call Interrail-Eurail passes. I’d warn anyone to not buy nor try. Buyer beware!!!!!
As far as I know, Eurostar are the only trains with a limited number of seats for pass holders so if you didn't want to travel with Eurostar I'm very surprised that there was a limited number of pass holder seats. Exactly what route for which date was sold out?
If you would have asked the Community for help with your reservation, I'm sure that you would have gotten help with your trip.
As I mentioned in my posting, “We read somewhere on the website to go to our nearest train station. That's what we did and were told that only a very few seats are allotted for Interrail-Eurail pass holders.”
Also, the answer below about RESERVATIONS is from THIS community discussion!
“Do Interrail passes sell out?
A Railpass like Eurail or Interrail never can be sold out :) How ever sometrains need a reservation and these reservations can be sold out :/ Because of that if you have a fixed shedule i recommend to reserve certain trains like Eurostar,TGV France - Spain, TGV
France - Italy as soon you can. Jul 2,2022”
https://community.eurail.com/eurail-interrail-passes-41/can-a-global-pass-be-sold-out-5596#:~:text=A%20Railpass%20like%20Eurail%20or,Italy%20as%20soon%20you%20can.
+7It’s not a scam. The vast majority of the pass holders have smooth and pleasant journeys. Buyer beware, but also buyer prepare for your travels!
It’s clearly mentioned everywhere on the website that seat reservations are a thing.
Many alternatives are given too, with the “reservation free itinerary” options and the “no seat reservation needed” button in the app.
Maybe there was a bug in the website or your app? Plenty of other options exist to get your seat reservation or get to your destination by train.
Instead of voicing your discontent here, you could have asked support about what was going on? Maybe a bit too early? Too late, some works going on, peak period, technical issues,...?
Not mentioning your date, route, destination also doesn’t help your case forward imho and will never give you a satisfying answer...
You still have answered my question. Exactly which train and date was sold out and made you cancel the whole trip?
I think that there is some missunderstanding that caused this.
And Interrail passes never sell out, but reservations can sell out.
The Interrail pass is you ticket but for some 10% of all trains in Europe you also must have a reservation and on popular routes and during high season, reservations can sell out.
I can provide details of the route, but what’s the point, exactly? All I know is that my husband tried a number of times to make seat reservations and couldn’t. I’ll post again to you what I posted to another commenter,
As I mentioned in my posting, “We read somewhere on the website to go to our nearest train station. That's what we did and were told that only a very few seats are allotted for Interrail-Eurail pass holders.”
Also, the answer below about RESERVATIONS is from THIS community discussion!
“Do Interrail passes sell out?
A Railpass like Eurail or Interrail never can be sold out :) How ever sometrains need a reservation and these reservations can be sold out :/ Because of that if you have a fixed shedule i recommend to reserve certain trains like Eurostar,TGV France - Spain, TGV
France - Italy as soon you can. Jul 2,2022”
https://community.eurail.com/eurail-interrail-passes-41/can-a-global-pass-be-sold-out-5596#:~:text=A%20Railpass%20like%20Eurail%20or,Italy%20as%20soon%20you%20can.
You still have answered my question. Exactly which train and date was sold out and made you cancel the whole trip?
I think that there is some missunderstanding that caused this.
And Interrail passes never sell out, but reservations can sell out.
The Interrail pass is you ticket but for some 10% of all trains in Europe you also must have a reservation and on popular routes and during high season, reservations can sell out.
We were trying to make reservations for travel in MAY, not exactly high season. I can provide details of the route, but what’s the point, exactly? All I know is that my husband tried a number of times to make seat reservations and couldn’t.
You might have been too early. Bookings don't always open on a set date, often the timetable isn't finalised due to works. This would be my guess.
It is very very unlikely that trains sell out months in advance (except Eurostar).
Staff at the station isn't always aware of what happens in other countries. What their screen says might not be correct. For example SNCF staff won't tell you that there are RENFE trains between Lyon/Marseille and Spain -> they'll knowingly lie to you (they did to me). It's their competitor.
Please give use the route and travel date so we could explain a bit (even if it's too late in your case).
Also note that we're only train travellers helping other travellers during out free time. :)
Most reservations are best done online so a gare SNCF might not be the best way to make the reservation.
The reason for asking for your travel details is that if there is an error somewhere in the reservation process, information about that should be given to Eurail. Without information about the travel details it is impossible to know what went wrong.
IA Railpass like Eurail or Interrail never can be sold out :) How ever sometrains need a reservation and these reservations can be sold out :/ Because of that if you have a fixed shedule i recommend to reserve certain trains like Eurostar,TGV France - Spain, TGV
France - Italy as soon you can. Jul 2,2022”
Only Eurostar and TGV Brussels-France still have limited pass holder reservations. Other trains can be booked until they're full.
The question remains: what exact train (route, date, departure time) did you try to book on which website and what made you think it was full? The fact that a certain website says it can't book a certain reservation does NOT necessarily mean the train is full. There are multiple possible reasons why a reservation is not (or not yet) possible.
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