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I booked and paid for seat reservations for Firenze SM Novella- Milano Porta Garibaldi and Milano Centrale-Spiez at the Eurail website against my account. Times on these paid-up seat reservations are 12.10pm depart Firenze 10/7/23 and 15.20 depart Milano same day.

HOWEVER, neither the Eurail website nor the Trenitalia now show any train departing Firenze SMN at 12.10pm 10/7/23 even though I have paid for this reservation. (The Milano Centrale-Spiez train 15.20pm 10/7/23 seems to exist).

Is my Eurail pass and/or seat reservation of any use?

I contacted Eurail support but they simply said wait several weeks for the train schedules to be repopulated online. I have double checked 2 weeks later and the 12.10 Firenze train still does not exist 10/7.

Is my paid up seat reservation with Eurail valid or of any use? I have no confidence in the situation. Should I buy yet another reservation on another Firenze service to Spiez - BUT I note these have different routes - via Bologne which requires yet a another additional reservation.

 

Thoroughly confused and lacking confidence in the Eurail seat reservation system at this point as this journey leg is part of a longer journey on the day from Castiglion Fiorentino to Interlaken West).

Tony Harding Melbourne (leaving for Europe soon in June)

 

The 12:10 train from Firenze SMN shows up on trenitalia.com:

 

Please note that the train you booked arrives at Milano Porta Garibaldi. You'll have to take the subway (not included) or walk 25 min to Milano Centrale.

The easiest choice would've been the 12:55 train direct to Centrale (14:50) but don't worry, you'll still make it to the connecting train :)

Btw I had advised tickets.oebb.at to save booking fees. Keep that in mind for next time, esp. as they offer free seat reservations for 1st class passholders in multiple countries.

Thank you very much for response

Checking again it appears my SINCERE apologies for my oversight and presumption.  

I also note with many thanks the time involved in Milano PG to Centrale tranit which I did not appreciate.

I have now Google Maps that - so thank you again both very much

 

Tony Melbourne

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.   

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