Most reservations can be done online, but not all at the same place. Interrail website can do some of them, but it usually isn’t the best place to use
Here is the guide:
For Milan - Interlaken, you can reserve on the ÖBB website, or at the station. I think any station in Italy would be able to do it, but it’s easier to do online.
For Zurich - Paris, you can do it on the Interrail site. It’s an expensive reservation though - €35. You can reduce it a lot by taking a Swiss train to Basel, then a local train to Mulhouse or Strasbourg, then a TGV from there.
As 10th April is Easter Monday, a lot of people will be travelling so do not wait before booking seat reservations, especially if you want to be seated together (you can't choose your seats but the system will assign you together when possible).
Here is an option with available seats :
- Roma Termini 11:10 - Milano Centrale 14:50 10€ seat reservation
- Milano Centrale 15:20 - Spiez 17:55 11€ seat reservation
- Spiez 18:05 - Interlaken West/Ost no reservation needed, just take a seat 18:21/18:26
I'd really advise you to book them now on tickets.oebb.at (add Eurail as a discount and select one-way tickets)
If you miss a train with reservations due to a delayed previous train, the staff will rebook you on the next train when possible.
As 10th April is Easter Monday, a lot of people will be travelling so do not wait before booking seat reservations, especially if you want to be seated together (you can't choose your seats but the system will assign you together when possible).
Here is an option with available seats :
- Roma Termini 11:10 - Milano Centrale 14:50 10€ seat reservation
- Milano Centrale 15:20 - Spiez 17:55 11€ seat reservation
- Spiez 18:05 - Interlaken West/Ost 18:21/18:26 no reservation needed, just take a seat
I'd really advise you to book these reservations now on tickets.oebb.at (add Eurail as a discount and select one-way tickets)
If you miss a train with reservations due to a delayed previous train, the staff will rebook you on the next train when possible.
As 10th April is Easter Monday, a lot of people will be travelling so do not wait before booking seat reservations, especially if you want to be seated together (you can't choose your seats but the system will assign you together when possible).
Here is an option with available seats :
- Roma Termini 11:10 - Milano Centrale 14:50 10€ seat reservation
- Milano Centrale 15:20 - Spiez 17:55 11€ seat reservation
- Spiez 18:05 - Interlaken West/Ost 18:21/18:26 no reservation needed, just take a seat
I'd really advise you to book these reservations now on tickets.oebb.at (add Eurail as a discount and select one-way tickets)
As 10th April is Easter Monday, a lot of people will be travelling so do not wait before booking seat reservations, especially if you want to be seated together (you can't choose your seats but the system will assign you together when possible).
Here is an option with available seats :
- Roma Termini 11:10 - Milano Centrale 14:50 10€ seat reservation
- Milano Centrale 15:20 - Spiez 17:55 11€ seat reservation
- Spiez 18:05 - Interlaken West/Ost 18:21/18:26 no reservation needed, just take a seat
I'd really advise you to book these reservations now on tickets.oebb.at (add Eurail as a discount and select one-way tickets)
If you miss a train with reservations due to a delayed previous train, the staff will rebook you on the next train when possible.
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.
As 10th April is Easter Monday, a lot of people will be travelling so do not wait before booking seat reservations, especially if you want to be seated together (you can't choose your seats but the system will assign you together when possible).
Here is an option with available seats :
- Roma Termini 11:10 - Milano Centrale 14:50 10€ seat reservation
- Milano Centrale 15:20 - Spiez 17:55 11€ seat reservation
- Spiez 18:05 - Interlaken West/Ost 18:21/18:26 no reservation needed, just take a seat
I'd really advise you to book these reservations now on tickets.oebb.at (add Eurail as a discount and select one-way tickets)
If you miss a train with reservations due to a delayed previous train, the staff will rebook you on the next train when possible.
As 10th April is Easter Monday, a lot of people will be travelling so do not wait before booking seat reservations, especially if you want to be seated together (you can't choose your seats but the system will assign you together when possible).
Here is an option with available seats :
- Roma Termini 11:10 - Milano Centrale 14:50 10€ seat reservation
- Milano Centrale 15:20 - Spiez 17:55 11€ seat reservation
- Spiez 18:05 - Interlaken West/Ost 18:21/18:26 no reservation needed, just take a seat
I'd really advise you to book these reservations now on tickets.oebb.at (add Eurail as a discount and select one-way tickets)
If you miss a train with reservations due to a delayed previous train, the staff will rebook you on the next train when possible.
TGV to Paris on 12th April :
- TGV Lyria direct Zurich - Paris Gare de Lyon 13:34/15:34/18:34 departures have available seats for 37€ per person
Eurail.com to book this one
- TGV Strasbourg - Paris-Est has more availabilities and is cheaper too : 10€ per person (or 20€ if the 10€ fare has sold out). You'd need to take any train to Basel SBB first (4 per hour) and then a TER train to Strasbourg (reservation-free, they travel at 200 km/h) : 1-2 trains per hour.
https://travel.b-europe.com/Eurail-GE/en/booking-tgv#TravelWish for this one
- Leave Zurich at 07:34, change in Basel SBB, Strasbourg 10:44 - 12:31, 20€ per person
- Leave Zurich at 11:34, change in Basel SBB, Strasbourg 14:49 - Paris-Est 16:38, 20€ per person
- Leave Zurich at 12:34, changes in Basel SBB and Mulhouse, Strasbourg 15:44 - Paris-Est 17:35, 10€ per person
Both options are possible, depending on how much money you want to spend. Book soon too, you can't leave it to the day.
Let me know.
Btw do you have other routes with mandatory seat reservations ? It's usually better to avoid eurail.com as they have a 2€ booking fee per person per journey
