Is it possible to make a reservation for a reservations not required train? I am traveling in July and since I know this is busy I am wondering if I can reserve in some way so I can guarantee a seat. I have to travel on a specific date and there is only one train option so I want to ensure I am able to get a seat.
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Heavily depends on the route. If you let us know the route, date and departure time we'll gladly help.
Regional trains can never be booked, whether you have a pass or a regular ticket. Simply add the train to the app before boarding (in order to get the ticket), hop on and find a free seat.
Most trains with optional seat reservations can be booked through tickets.oebb.at (no booking fee) : add Eurail as a discount and select one-way tickets. 3€ 2nd class, free with a 1st class pass.
Hi, thank you I tried to do this but when I go to the site it says ticket unavailable? Does this mean that I cannot make a reservation or that the train is completely full?
For a train not requiring reservations it can mean a few things :
- not available through eurail.com (but from elsewhere yes, surely way cheaper)
- not bookable at all
However it doesn't mean that the train is full or not included in the pass.
If you don't give us the route, we won't be able to help you…
If you tried through ÖBB, you may have selected seat reservation only which is not the way to go (counter-intuitive I know) or you may have tried in a country that ÖBB doesn't cover
What route, date and time do you want to make a reservation for?
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.
Most local or regional trains cannot be reserved. This is the majority of all the trains in Europe.
Look out fhe outer ends of those trains, the whole front or the very end of the train is always much calmer than in the middle e.g. People are lazy and don’t walk far to find a nice, quieter area with lots of seats.
These trains stop fairly regular, if people get in and out in stations, there will be always places. Standing is rather uncommon, usually it happens around rush hour in bigger cities or heading to/from popular areas (Sea- or lakesides, some event somewhere,… in Summer).
If you use the local train company apps, or webiste planners you often get an indication of how busy the train might get, together with other up to date real time information.
The pass will give you a lot of flexibility to dodge busy trains. If one is full, just take an earlier or later one.
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