Hi, I made 2 seat reservations before actually activating my interrail pass. So far I haven't had any email or bank billing confirmations of these reservations. Is it possible ? Or has the bank payment not gone through ? Do I need to tie in the pass to the reservations but where are they ?
Thanks
All reservations are separate from the pass. Where did you make the reservations? If you made them through Interrail/Eurail you need to check your account under reservations.
Have you paid for the reservations? If not, you need to make the reservations again.
There are often better ways to make reservations than Interrail/Eurail.
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.
Thanks. I made the reservations via the interrail app and can't trace them.
I'm travelling from Paris to Spain. The SNCF employee at the desk this morning was unable to help with the booking so I resorted to the app.
And trains in Spain can't be booked from overseas apparently..
Have you paid for the reservation?
As you live in France, the best way to make reservations with SNCF is to call them or go to the station if you have one close to where you live.
I'm travelling from Paris to Spain. The SNCF employee at the desk this morning was unable to help with the booking so I resorted to the app.
The app can't book any reservations, but it can forward to some of the websites where you can book, so you probably booked via the Interrail website.
If you could book that way, then SNCF must also have been able to book, since all reservations for this train ultimately come from the SNCF system. So either there was a short system problem on the SNCF side, or the SNCF employee didn't know how to book.
I think I did pay but can't find any confirmation.
The lady at the SNCF shop acted very confused as foon as I uttered the word "interrail pass". She said she couldn't make reservations..
I think I did pay but can't find any confirmation.
Maybe best contact customer service to ask if you have a booking:
https://eurail.zendesk.com/hc/en-001/requests/new
Mention your travel date so they can prioritise correctly.
The lady at the SNCF shop acted very confused as foon as I uttered the word "interrail pass". She said she couldn't make reservations..
Sounds like a classic case of PEBCAK 
- it happens occasionally at SNCF.
If you don't have a booking, try again at an SNCF ticket office or call them.
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