Hi all!

I am 49 days out from my trip to Vienna where I and a group of friends will be taking the Eurail from Vienna to Munich, then returning from that trip to then go from Vienna to Budapest. We purchased the four-day rail pass which as I understand doesn’t preclude us from purchasing seat reservations. When browsing the train station timetables to purchase these seat reservations however, we are constantly encountering situations where the first half of the connection is unavailable but the second half is for purchasing and/or we are being required to purchase a separate ticket altogether for that section of the train. From my understanding, the Eurail pass was supposed to act as our ticket/pass that we then purchase seat reservations in addition to.

Here are the train pathways we are required to have seat reservations for:

(Returning) Oct 3 - 20:09 - 21:52 - NJ295 Munich to Salzburg HBF

(Departing) Oct 6 - 6:40 - 9:19 - RE4637 Wien to Budapest-Kelenfoeld

(Returning) Oct 6 - 20:35 - 20:41 - IC878 Budapest-Deli to Budapest-Kelenfoeld; 20:55 - 23:21 - EN462 Budapest-Kelenfoeld to Wien HBF.

I have read on other postings that the issue seemed to revolve around people looking too far in advance for these timetables, so I wonder if that also remains the issue here. There are four of us so we would ideally like to book in advance, but if it is better to book a few days before that would be good to know. From reading this forum you all are much more advanced and knowledgeable about the railways and how best to navigate it, so any advice is greatly appreciated. There is also the potential solution of us having someone land on the ground before and physically book at the main train station. If that is a better solution than navigating through MAV, OEBB, and other train websites, please let me know! Thank you all for your help!