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Using SNCB to book Eurostar / SNCF reservations

  • 7 October 2022
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Yesterday I bought mobile Interrail passes for myself and my wife and went off straight away to the SNCB site https://www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass#TravelWish to successfully buy Eurostar reservations London - Paris which were fast selling out for December 17th!

I am now looking at going to https://travel.b-europe.com/Eurail-GE/en/booking-tgv#TravelWish to secure onward TGV reservations.

I bought the reservations even though the SNCB site said something like ‘paper pass only’ but I had ONE generated pass cover number which I used against the purchase of both my wife and my own passes.

I have now read at How do I book my seat reservations? | Interrail.eu “Paper Pass only - Via SNCB: domestic and international trains (Thalys and Eurostar)” and I am getting a little concerned because I think to myself “How could Interrail and SNCB sites both not be updated to reflect what was in my head about the status quo regarding using SNCB for mobile passes?”

So questions arise:

  1. Are the Eurostar reservations that I have in my digital possession fully valid?
  1. Can I make SNCF reservations at SNCB? (Option not mentioned at all at How do I book my seat reservations? | Interrail.eu , available further ahead and half the price of Interrail reservations)
  1. Was I OK to put same pass cover number against both reservations?

Hoping the answers are Yes, Yes and Yes!

Thanks

Scott

 

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Best answer by AnnaB 7 October 2022, 10:00

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The answer are 3 x yes so you are perfectly fine.

 

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 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.

Please note that I don't work for Interrail/Eurail and that I don't reply to personal messages.
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Thank you for the reassurance!

Despite all being fine in my head because of what I understood that I had read in various places on this forum that it is so tricky when there are contradictory messages on the official sites. 

Scott

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