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Hello this is a first time 18yr old traveller going with discovereu here. I have an Interrail pass. I am very lost about these reservation thing. So, when I check my DiscoverEU trip pass, it shows a train that goes from Halkalı(Istanbul) to Videle (Romania) from 20.00 to 16.18 but when i check the interrail.eu site i cant find this train. Also, even though i added my trip i had to manually choose every train, i hope that is correct. I will share my route here in case you guys need more information for helping me. I checked the Turkey rail website but there is no train to videle either. I am very lost about all of this and i really need help.

 

 

 

The Halkali - Bucharest train indeed does exist. It is a single couchette carriage attached to the Sofia night train up to Dimitrovgrad and then to various regional trains to Bucharest. You can add the journey manually. More info : https://www.seat61.com/trains-and-routes/bucharest-and-sofia-to-istanbul-by-train.htm

I'd recommend going all the way to Bucharest to switch trains.

You have to book a couchette at Sirkeci or Halkali train stations, no other alternatives.

More info about reservations :

https://community.eurail.com/train-connections-reservations-47/how-to-get-reservations-105

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


The advice is to wait with activating the pass and travel days until you are 100% sure that you will board the first train of your travel. Please read more about that below. 

 

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 Railplanner app or DiscoverEU app 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 you choose the start day of the validity of the pass. Once the validity has started it can't be changed even if you haven't travelled. The advice is therefore to wait with activating the pass and starting the validity until the first day of your travel as you only can deactivate the pass no later than 23.59 CET on the day before the validity starts. If your travel plans change in the last moment you can't deactivate the pass and change the validity. 

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 and create the ticket (QR code), 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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