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Reserving spots on trains

  • 27 June 2023
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Hello.

I have activated my pass, created an itinerary and added trip segments ("journeys") to the itinerary. I have also indicated travellers and the respecive passcodes, and reserved seats on trains that require seat reservations. Some of the transactions were completed on the Eurail.com site on my desktop.

 

When I look at my Rail Planner app, it said 0 of X days used. Looking over the help section, it said to add the journey segment in the app. When I tried to add the journey, I just see a list and no button to add the journey.

 

Am I booked on all segments of a journey? One journey goes from Amsterdam to York, where I do have reserved seats on the Thalys, Eurostar and Express portions of the journey. The first segment of the journey that connects us to the Thalys did not require seat reservations so I have not reserved any.

How do I reserve spots on the first train (where seat reservations are not necessary) if I am not already booked? Part of the reason I am asking is when I had used the Eurail pass, (in Britain) I had to collect tickets at the ticket office and (in Germany), we merely showed up and took empty seats and let the conductors fill in our travel dates on the pass  for us during our travel day. Should I take the precaution of making seat reservations even if not required, just to ensure that we do have train tickets. Please advise. Thanks in advance!!!

 

 

 

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Best answer by AnnaB 27 June 2023, 17:04

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Reservations are separate from the app so no reservations will show there. In the app you create a Trip for each pass. To each Trip you then connect each train as a Journey. Just before boarding the train you activate the journey to get the QR-code which is your ticket.

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 is to avoid activating the pass until just before boarding 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 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.
BrendanDB
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Oei, a lot of questions

  • Best not activate your pass, or travel days until just before travelling. You never know if last minutes changes happen, and you don’t want to risk losing travel days.
  • Your pass = ticket. Seat reservations are separate from that. You cannot book seats in the app. The mobile app just registers the trains, like you would fill out a train on a paper pass.
  • Trains with mandatory reservations, require a valid pass and seat reservation. Otherwise you cannot board. All other trains (optional reservations, or no reservations needed/possible) just find a free seat. With trains with optional reservations, you need to possibly give way to people that reserved (or chase people away that sit on your reserved seat).

Am I booked on all segments of a journey? One journey goes from Amsterdam to York, where I do have reserved seats on the Thalys, Eurostar and Express portions of the journey. The first segment of the journey that connects us to the Thalys did not require seat reservations so I have not reserved any.

  • You’re good to go, everyting is done right. All trains with mandatory reservations (Thalys, Eurostar) are reserved, generate the qr code (travel day) when travelling.

How do I reserve spots on the first train (where seat reservations are not necessary) if I am not already booked?

  • Depends: optional reservations (like on IC, ICE, EC, Railjets,… in Germany/Austria) buy them directly via the app of the railway company itself, or at the ticket office, or via Eurail (but not recommended, more expensive). Most apps have PayPal, credit card options, iDeal, Apple Pay, … plenty of options to pay.

Non-reservable trains (all regional trains, all domestic trains in Belgium and the Netherlands): just find a free seat, and register the train in your rail planner app

You can add or delete as many trains as you want on a valid travel day, if you’lld like to take an earlier train or a later one, perfectly possible. Just register the journey.

More comprehensive user guide is found here: https://www.seat61.com/how-to-use-a-eurail-pass.htm#how-does-a-eurail-pass-work and here: https://www.eurail.com/en/eurail-passes/eurail-mobile-pass/getting-started

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Thank you all for your advice and links!  It clarifies the difference between the old paper pass and the mobile pass.  It seems that the only major  difference is with the mobile pass, we have to register it by generating a QR code first.

 

Part of the reason, I was a bit concerned about making sure we get on specific trains is we are travelling in early Septermber which seems to be still part of the “summer travel” season.  But, I think my “registering” the critical long-haul segments by reserving seats for the Amsterdam-UK segments and the Scotland-England segments should at least “fix” those segments.

 

I am glad that my caution in just activating those critical journeys is not unusual!

BrendanDB
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Only making seat reservations fixes your train, the app is just the digital version of filling out lines in a paper pass. 

Of all trains, only Eurostar (or night trains) are important to fix in advance (but I understood you got those, good). Be well in advance when taking Eurostar, best timing to arrive is mentioned on the reservation. 

Scotland-England reservations are not super urgent, there's plenty of trains and always some seats left. I can always make -(free) seat reservations the day self, before taking the train. 

For all others trains in Europe there are usually good frequencies or easy alternatives requiring no (or less pricey alternatives). Just Eurostar is a tricky one and a bottleneck. :) 

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