I just wanted to let everyone know I have never experienced such a horrible site. This is absurd; the fact that I am not able to book my seat reservations smoothly is horrible. I will NEVER be referring Eurail to another person so as not to put them through the hell I have gone through. I am unable to book anything because this site is trash. There is no customer service whatsoever to help you and the fact I have to go to a community forum of a bunch of other confused people is disgusting. I would honestly cancel my ticket if my friend hadn’t already successfully (after 1.5 hours) gotten her reservations booked. HORRIBLE SERVICE AND WORST SITE EVER! Will never be booking through this scam again .
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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 ticket 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.
It is not a scam-and this is not AmTrak either. It is how we continentals on Europe have to deal with 30+ different state railways-some still living in the 20th century and mostly serving as a employment project for people. Though most people only use the train in their own country. The tipical USA-style ´fone an agent´ will also not work. I want my money back-with a fee to have it done. If I had a shop I would also not be impressed byb ´never come back´ from people who never would come back-but I am not USA.
But you did it yourself-by again choosing those routes that need REServ-there are so many, much nicer, more sceni routesc, letting even USAers see the ´real´ EURope besides a few of those hi-speed lines where you only see soundwalls. Plus there is a sudden travelboom this summer and a giant staff-shortage in about any form of transport-incl. extended and hours-long waits at airports to even pass security.
May you please offer some form of advice on how to best move forward? Because it is deeming impossible to book any reservations for my own travels. If you have any advice, I would please like to hear it - anything would be appreciated.
If you give your travel details (departure date, time and route) here you will then get advice how to make your reservations.
Naples, Italy → Zurich, Switzerland (August 10th) Anytime.
Amsterdam, Netherland → Paris, France (August 18th) Anytime.
Paris, France → Barcelona, Spain (August 19th) Anytime.
Any advice is welcomed and appreciated please, thank you
Naples - Zurich: book via ÖBB. Do NOT use the "Seat only” option but add the "Interrail / Eurail” discount and then look for normal tickets.
Amsterdam - Paris: via Eurail (booking fee 2€ per person and train) or B-Europe (booking fee 4€ per order; also a good site to check availability) or by phone via NS.
Paris - Barcelona: by phone via SNCF. Press #85 for English, no booking fee, reservation is sent via e-mail.
(Zurich - Amsterdam: book via DB with "Seat only”)
Is there a way to book through TrenItalia? I am trying to get on the same train as my best friend who was able to book the tickets through Eurail
No not possible,
but Austrian ÖBB sells the reservation for Trenitalia Trains online.
Naples - Zurich: book via ÖBB. Do NOT use the "Seat only” option but add the "Interrail / Eurail” discount and then look for normal tickets.
Okay, thank you to everyone who helped! Everything was appreciated.
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