Missing Child Ticket – Madrid to Barcelona Reservation

Hi,

If you paid, and you already sent email to eurail, 

It should no problem if you have all detail request from them.

Do you have a free children's pass for your son? If not, you don't get a seat for the child. A child under 4 needs a children's pass in order to get a seat. 

If you make reservations for several people you get seats together if there are seats avaliable together. I guess that that the train is more or less fully booked. 

On Eurail.com you can never choose your seats.

If you want to choose your seats, then for Spanish trains book on happyrail.com. In general, it's better to use this page as a guide to reservations:

https://www.seat61.com/interrail-and-eurail-reservations.htm

I already replied to the email they sent, and I’ve been waiting for a response for over an hour, since that is the only communication channel they have.

I tried making the reservation again and I’m facing the exact same issue: I’m being charged for three tickets, but no seat is assigned for the child because apparently it’s “not applicable.”

The only option I can find at this point is to go to the station in person. Unbelievable in 2026.

What is your travel date? That defines priority and if's not in the next few days, then I think you'll have to accept that answers don't always come immediately.

A station ticket office won't necessarily be able to help because the booking is through Eurail and they should make sure the correct seats are booked.

I don’t care if the seats are in different coaches. The real problem is that I don’t have a ticket for my 3-year-old son, who is supposedly traveling for free, but they still charged me for him. And even if he travels for free, he still needs a child ticket.

The solution they gave me is that, if I want him to have his own seat, I should lie about his age and say he is older. But the Eurail website does not let me change the birth date anymore.

I’m running out of time, availability for new reservations is getting lower and lower, and the emails are only answered every couple of hours.

At this point I’ll probably just show up with the reservations I already have, travel separated while carrying my child on my lap, and argue later to get back the money they charged me for him.

You didn't answer my question.

In addition, where does it say that the seat reservation would be free of charge? Even if the pass is free of charge, a reservation almost always needs to be paid if you want a seat.

In any case, if you paid for a seat, then you're entitled to get a seat, regardless of what age you used when booking. That's argument I'd use.

If in the and you couldn't use the seat, then you're indeed entitled to a full refund, including the booking fee.

​@Eurail Community Moderator This does look like a serious bug: if you book a seat, then you should get a seat, regardless of the indicated age.

I was charged for something that should not have been charged. Children under 3 years old are not supposed to occupy a seat, but I was charged anyway and no ticket was issued for him — that is the main problem, period.

Now, the solution they give me if I want a seat for the child is to lie about his age so the system generates a seat reservation; otherwise, he has to travel sitting on our laps.

And to get to all of this, the only way to communicate with them is by email, which they answer with at least a 2-hour delay when the trip is the next day.

Exactly — or alternatively, if a seat is not supposed to be assigned, then the system should not allow me to reserve and pay for a ticket for a 3-year-old child in the first place.

Reaching this conclusion took an entire day of stress, with delayed email responses because there is no chat, no WhatsApp, nor any alternative way to communicate.

In the end, I had to keep the original reservation, and I will now have to request a refund for the ticket that was charged for the 3-year-old child who does not occupy a seat.

You're supposed to be able to book a seat for anybody, regardless of age. If you want a seat for a 3-year old, then that must be possible for the regular reservation fee, provided there's also a pass for the child. Reservations don't suddenly become free of charge.

That's not a solution, just a workaround, which is not very useful, since you'll typically already have entered all ages.

A seat is supposed to be assigned if you request one, regardless of age.

​@Eurail Community Moderator If there's a bug in de booking module that results in a missing seat, then customer service must assign or book a seat retroactively. It cannot be the case that a bug results in paying for nothing. When will this be fixed?

Hello!

This is actually the issue with Iryo reservations for children under 3. The carrier does not provide a separate ticket/seat reservation for minors under 3 years old, which unfortunately is something we cannot control from our side.

​@Martinsch85 You have already been refunded for the unnecessary charge.

If you still want a separate seat for the child, you can try changing the traveller details via the “Edit travellers” option in our booking portal before booking again. Otherwise, the other option would be to check directly at the station counter in Spain to see what Iryo can offer locally.

​@Camilo. 

There are things you can control though:

1. Not charge people for a reservation they won't get. Instead, for the time being, warn people when they try to book an Iryo reservation for a young child that this doesn't currently work, and explain what they need to do instead.
2. Talk to Iryo! IMO they're required to issue a reservation when someone wants to book one, so they need to make changes on their side.
3. If Iryo doesn't want to make changes, then make a change on the Eurail side to make sure that a reservation is booked, e.g. change the age for an Iryo booking automatically.

Could you let us know what Eurail is going to do next? There will be more disappointed and angry pass holders who run into this.