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Reservations - Country of birth drop down menu urgently needs to be fixed- include “Other” option to enter manually.

  • 11 June 2022
  • 6 replies
  • 143 views

I am unable to book seat reservations on Eurail as the passenger details page does not list my country of birth. It has been a very frustrating experience. I sent a message via Chatbot on Eurail site, however received an automated message after several days that there is a high volume of queries, and that I may not receive an answer any time soon.

I noticed others had previously mentioned in the forum that their country of birth was not listed on the drop down menu. This should have been fixed by now, as others had alerted Eurail of the problem several months ago. All it needs is for the website to be adjusted to include “Other” option for Country of birth, to allow manual entry of country in a text box. 
 

Something else that Eurail need to fix is that the App should allow seat reservations to be done via the App, not to be redirected to the website.

6 replies

seewulf
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Userlevel 7
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I am unable to book seat reservations on Eurail as the passenger details page does not list my country of birth. It has been a very frustrating experience. I sent a message via Chatbot on Eurail site, however received an automated message after several days that there is a high volume of queries, and that I may not receive an answer any time soon.
To help here you have to share some details like Route and date otherwise we can just guess which trains you wanna reserve

I noticed others had previously mentioned in the forum that their country of birth was not listed on the drop down menu. This should have been fixed by now, as others had alerted Eurail of the problem several months ago. All it needs is for the website to be adjusted to include “Other” option for Country of birth, to allow manual entry of country in a text box. 
They wont do it as the Country is important to find out if you eligable for Interrail & Eurail as there are still few differences between these offers :/ 
The question is which countries are missing as the list have all from the UN recognised countries.
 

Something else that Eurail need to fix is that the App should allow seat reservations to be done via the App, not to be redirected to the website.
Easier said then done :) Each railcompany have yet their own booking system not like in the 80 or 90ties when you were able to book a ticket from Lisbon to Moscow and even further at a ticket office. As they had all the same system. Eurail tries to offer a all from one hand solution but it´s very difficult even their Reservationwebsite have problems. I am not happy how the current status is but i know that even the Eurail staff doesnt like it and they try to improve it step by step but for that they need acces / a connecting point to the bookingsystems of the Railcompanies and someofthem doesn´t want that. As they doesnt want to change their system or it´s quite complicated to change that. Before the website is not 100% functional they wont include it in the app.


Here a general overview as we have no details which trains you wanna reserve :)
(Side note reserving trains directly with the railcompany saves the service (and in case of paperreservation even the shippment) fee.

The pass is your ticket. Tickets & reservations are currently a complete seperate process ;)

 

I´ am not working for Eurail or Interrail i just share my knowledge here. Please ask in the Community and not via private message as this is the fastest way to get an answer. I prefer English/German/ Czech for my answers. In case of Reservationquestions please share some details like Route, Date, Trainnumber as otherwise we can just provide general advices or answers
K

Thanks for the reply. It’s for train bookings in Italy mainly, and Switzerland. I have already looked at other options and done the research- Trenitalia website does not allow seat reservations for pass holders. ÖBB site comes up with problems when trying to choose the date you want- it shows availability for seats between Italian cities, and then when you come to the step of choosing the class and adding on, suddenly shows no seat availability.

 

The frustrating issue with Eurail website is that seat reservations are able to be added for the trains we want to catch, however I am prevented from going further when we get to the passenger details page, as my country of birth is not listed. I noticed many countries are not listed. There should be an alternative way to enter your country of birth manually.

M
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Userlevel 7
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I somehow think you did NOT read the full instructions on howtodo via the OeBB sideway.

As seewulf has said- ALL the UN-member countries (there are simply standard lists for this one hits anywhere) but as you keep so secretive about yours, how do you expect any help-very often the official name is just a tad different from what many people think it is- but your passpt should have it.

Perhaps you have chosen the wrong type of pass_ INterRail for Europeans (and with the stringent restriction of only 2 traveldays IN that country) and EUrail for those from further on.

It was also-just to hit back a little- that esp. the Brits often seem to have the strangest ideas about this-helped of course by the wish of a tiny majority over the Sea to go into Brexit. These passes have nothing whatsoever to do with EU-they were even there long before the EU was.

K

Hi mcadv, 

Thanks for your comment. I am not sure what you mean, but there is no secret. It is simply an issue with some countries not being listed on the passenger page. I live in Australia, and am a citizen, however my country of birth is Iran. I think the Eurail website needs to be fixed to allow for other countries, and I have informed them of this, but no reply as yet. As per previous forums, countries such as Ghana etc are also not listed. 

R
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Userlevel 7
Badge +9

Just book Italian trains via ÖBB. They don't need to know when or when you were born. If that doesn't work, then please mention the exact train you are trying to book (route, date, departure time). Without that information it's difficult to troubleshoot.

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.
K

Thanks rvdborgt. I have managed to eventually sort out seat reservations. There are booking companies based in Australia who also book seat reservations for Eurail pass holders. I tried the other options, like ÖBB several times, but some seat reservations were initially showing availability, but when you add the passengers, it stated no availability. It might be an issue with the Trenitalia system linking with OBB, but I am not sure. For example, one of the train trips was from Varenna to Venezia. There was also a side trip from Milan to Lucerne that I was booking. Others were all within Italy.

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