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Online Seat reservation for Spain to Switzerland via France - how to book?

  • 19 July 2022
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Hi,

I wanted to book ticket online from Barcelona to geneva(Swiss) which would be via france but I dont see any direct carrier website which takes interrail pass as option. Can someone suggest how can I book this online. On Interrail website it says Price unavailable.

Also Do will we able to get any seat on no reservation regional trains of Spain. I am wondering if they are too overcrowded? Also how would we be able to board those as I heard we need to scan barcode for boarding gates to open and for regional trains we cant add them to cart or journey on Interrail pass. Please help.

 

Thanks

Priyanka 

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Best answer by AnnaB 19 July 2022, 08:34

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Hi,

I wanted to book ticket online from Barcelona to geneva(Swiss) which would be via france but I dont see any direct carrier website which takes interrail pass as option. Can someone suggest how can I book this online. On Interrail website it says Price unavailable

There are better ways to make reservations than the Interrail website. Not all reservations can be made on-line though. Please read more below in theadvice from the experienced travellers. .

Also Do will we able to get any seat on no reservation regional trains of Spain. I am wondering if they are too overcrowded? Also how would we be able to board those as I heard we need to scan barcode for boarding gates to open and for regional trains we cant add them to cart or journey on Interrail pass.

Just before boarding the train you create a ticket (QRcode) in the app. In some places this code opens the gates. Otherwise you go to the staffed gate.

 

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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, 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.

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In ESpana for cercanias and the very few REGional trenes the code will not work-the gates are made for magn stripe or newer for chipcards. YOu have to go to office and show pass and they can open 1 gate remote for you. IF office closed (small station, late evening)=bad luck.

Gates (more often manual checks) for superfast AVE work with codes of the REServ. B there early-like airplane-for the luggage check (bombs alwert)

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