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Train Reservations from Vienna to Poland

  • 5 August 2022
  • 4 replies
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Hi, 

I have a train selected from Wien Hbf (Vienna) to Krakow Glowny (Poland) that requires seat reservation. On the app it requires me to go to an external site. I can either book with the CD or Deutsche Bahn; however, when I go to the sites and find the train it has no option to allow me to even reserve. 

I do not travel to Poland (hopefully) for a little over a month and unsure if the timing is not allowing me to reserve? Someone help please!

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Best answer by Yorkie 5 August 2022, 12:40

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Userlevel 7
Badge +9

Resevations are never made through the app. They are are always made at external sites that the app links to. 

Polish reservations, at least for domestic trains, open 30 days in advance. 

 

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, when you choose the start day of the validity of the pass, the first day of the validity period is automatically made a travel day, even if you don't enter a journey, the advice is therefore not to activate the pass before the first travel day as you only can deactivate the pass before 00.00 on the day the validity starts. If your travel plans change in the last moment you will loose travel days if you have activated the pass in advance.

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, 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.

Userlevel 7
Badge +10

It is worth checking the Austrian (OBB) website (oebb.at) for reservations. There are 2 routes to informing them you are an interrail passenger:

  1. Simply click the seat only option
  2. In the passenger dropdown you can add Interrail/Eurail pass into the discount section. To find the IR/ER option you have to scroll to the bottom of the drop down options where there is a see more option. IR/ER is near the bottom of the long list.

Note these are an either/or choice, you do not need both.

Then search for trains and make your choices,

Once you add your reservations (if available) and pay any relevant fees the reservation is e-mailed to you as an attachment.

Thank you for the help regarding Austria and Poland. I am also having the same issue with Split to Zagreb and Zagreb to Ljubljana. All train routes say the seat reservations are not available even before and after multiple days. Any advice on this one? 

Userlevel 7
Badge +5

Sp->Za: can only be done when there by a living person working for the railways sitting behind a counter. Za→ Lj: no need to, but if wanted same way-except for the first leg of what becomes the NJ/overnight to MÜnchen/Züri

Wien-.PL; DAY time is likely as seatonly, NIGHt time-as above-book ticket, add discount as pass. But there are many reports that it does not work for trains to and even more out of PL.

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