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Paris to Barcelona Train Reservation Problem / plus advice for next Reservation from Barcelona to Geneva

  • 27 March 2023
  • 4 replies
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Hi,

Very much hoping that someone can help me as I have not yet had a response from Eurail Customer Service…

Yesterday (as it was 90 days out) I tried to book seat reservations from Paris to Barcelona for my family of six. The Eurail system kept coming up with an error at the payment stage. Info on the Eurail web site suggested that the reason for the error was because we were trying to book for six people in one transaction. So I split my party in two and booked for three people at a time. Only problem is, even though I did the bookings straight away after one another, the seats ended up in different carriages. This is not ideal as it’s an eight hour journey and we want to sit near our kids. Is there any way that we can change the seats? ie a phone number to call where I can speak to a person

 

In a couple of days time I need to book the seat reservations from Barcelona to Paris. Is there a way to book this so that we can sit all together (or at least in the same carriage)?

I have carefully read the Seat Reservation guide that has been posted on this Forum but can’t see alternate methods of booking the reservations other than attending a train station. (I’m located in Australia so that isn’t going to be possible).

We are on a family holiday with booked accommodation / tours etc so really need to book in advance to make sure that we secure reservations on the days that we need them.

I would be very grateful for any advice that anyone is able to offer...

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Best answer by Al_G 27 March 2023, 06:44

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Phoning SNCF is likely the only option for altering the reservation, not sure I’d reccommend it as such. People report having massively variable results with them on the phone.

Details on this and other reservation sources are here

 

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Phoning SNCF is likely the only option for altering the reservation, not sure I’d reccommend it as such. People report having massively variable results with them on the phone.

I haven't seen any complaints lately about the SNCF phone number so maybe they're improved.

In any case, they can certainly book this train and they're €2 less expensive per seat than Eurail (although there will be phone costs).

Please ask questions in the community and not via a private message. That's the quickest way to get a response. I don't work for Eurail/Interrail.
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I can advise that SNCF is answering the phone. However they tell me that they cannot change the Eurail seat reservation, but only Eurail can do this.

Eurail is telling me they cannot change the seat reservation, and that only SCNF can.

Mind you, Eurail also told me there was nothing wrong with their web site and it should be able to book reservations for six travellers in one transaction. That’s clearly not the case and I have now sent them a screenshot of the error code that I get every time I try and make a reservation that involves six travellers.

There are plenty of seats on the train! SCNF customer service told me there is plenty of room for us all to sit together. SOOOOO frustrating.

I am going to try and ring SCNF customer service again in hopes of getting a more helpful person on the phone.

Eurail customer service told me that is says on the ticket that SCNF will accept exchanges, but the ticket is in French, so I can’t be 100% sure of this…

Any other helpful tips on how to get this resolved? It seems like it should be a really simple thing to do...

(and yes, I know now I should NOT have tried to do this on the Eurail web site. But I didn’t know this when I went to book yesterday…)

 

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I just received a further email from Eurail saying that if the error is on their side then they will take further action to help me. I’ve sent them a screenshot so that they can see that the error is occurring - so hopefully this will all get resolved soon.

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