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Problem of making seat reservation

  • 23 April 2023
  • 9 replies
  • 467 views
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​Hello, we have bought two Eurail global mobile passes (1st class) and have encountered difficulty making seat reservation for two trains:
(1) from Geneve to Paris Gare De Lyon departs at 08:29 on 26 May 2023 (TGV 9764; 1st class seat); and
(2) from London St Pancras Intl to Paris Nord departs at 15:31 on 4 June 2023 (ES 9036; 1st class seat).

 

After inputt​​ing billing address, credit card information and all travellers’ details, we got an error message “Something went wrong” when proceeding with the payment for seat reservation (see the screenshot below), and thus could not complete the payment. We also tried refreshing the page, using an incognito browser and cleaning cookies/temporary files but still did not work.

 

Please advise how the issue could be resolved. Many thanks in advance.

 

 

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Best answer by AnnaB 23 April 2023, 11:54

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A
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There are better places to make reservations than the Eurail website. 

Here's information about how to make reservations for the Eurostar between mainland Europe and the UK.

There is a limited number of pass holder seats on the Eurostar between London and mainland Europe. On popular departures and during high season those sell out weeks, and sometimes months in advance.

The best place to see the availability of passholder seats and make reservations on the Eurostar is 

https://www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass#TravelWish

If you don't get any result, press "later trains" and eventually you will find the next available connection. 

If you have a mobile pass you need to generate a Pass Cover Number in order to make the reservation at b-europe. You do that here in the PCN generator:

https://community.eurail.com/news-and-announcements-39/pass-cover-number-generator-is-live-5653

Please note that I don't work for Interrail/Eurail and that I don't reply to personal messages.
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The recommendation from the experienced travellers in the community is to only make reservations through the Eurail website if no other options are available. 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 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 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.

Please note that I don't work for Interrail/Eurail and that I don't reply to personal messages.
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Book Eurostar here : https://www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass#TravelWish

It'll cost 2 x 38€ (+ 4€ booking fee per order)

Do not take the direct TGV to Paris, it has a 70€ fee per person (1st class). Instead take a regional train to Bellegarde just across the border and then the same TGV for 10-20€

@rvdborgt @Yorkie Could you please check if the TGV from Bellegarde is available ? I can't seem to book any TGV on 26th May from Bellegarde while there are plenty of available seats on sncf-connect.com from Geneva… Are they again trying to discourage people from boarding the TGV within France ?

https://travel.b-europe.com/Eurail-GE/en/booking-tgv#TravelWish

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B-europe site showing availability for your desired train on 4 June.

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@rvdborgt @Yorkie Could you please check if the TGV from Bellegarde is available ? I can't seem to book any TGV on 26th May from Bellegarde while there are plenty of available seats on sncf-connect.com from Geneva… Are they again trying to discourage people from boarding the TGV within France ?

Probably. I recall having seen French articles about that because it's not limited to pass holder seats but there seem to be a limited number of seats in general from/to Bellegarde on those trains.

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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Will have a look at those articles, thanks !

Yeah regular tickets cannot even be bought, this is quite surprising but again SNCF...

Y
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There is a big street event in Paris that weekend which may be why all trains are fully booked. Alternatively is there any works that weekend meaning a diversion?

I am sure you have checked Thursday and Sunday and seen plenty of availability.

 

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@Yorkie there are plenty of seats available from Geneva so that's why it seems weird that there's not a single one from Bellegarde while all TGVs stop there

- sncf-connect.com shows all trains as full for tickets

- b-europe.com full for seat reservations too

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Just found an article suggesting extensive work at Paris stations causing weekend bookings not being released until one month ahead, Main TGVs may also be being diverted to another station. 

These may be why they are showing full for domestic TGVs - the diversion may take it away from Bellegarde or simply not released yet.

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