Hi Everyone, I am trying to book seat reservations for multiple trains with a eurail pass and was wonder what the best places to book would be?
The trains are from:
San Sebastian to Paris,
Paris to Amsterdam
Munich to Salzburg
Salzburg to Venice
Thank you! all suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Greta,
I booked most of my seat reservations online because it was simpler - but the eurail website also has an additional booking fee for each reservation. Roughly 2 Euros each.
If you want to skip that then booking your seat reservations at the station is a possibility. The only catch here is that each train has a specific number of seats reserved for the global pass so if you haven’t booked in time you could either end up in a different coach category (Second class on a first class pass only) or you might have to pay a full fare for that ticket.
This happened to me when I didn’t book Lyon to Barcelona in time and had to pay 130 Euros for a second class ticket when a first class seat reservation may have cost 15 Euros at the most.
I think the extra 2 Euros is worth the time and trouble saved for a hassle-free trip.
You can book them here - https://www.eurail.com/en/book-reservations
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.
Unfortunately there are a multitude of sources for making reservations and there is no single source for them, although there are some that will offer trains from a number of operators. There are several guides in the community and I am sure others will post the best links.
In a general guide though:
The Interrail reservation service is an attempt to source as many as possible in one place. It does though have serious limitations so is advised by regular Interrailers as the last place to try. Not least because they charge a fee for every train reservation of 2 euro, so if 4 people were to book 4 seats each it would cost 32 Euro in fees. Many other reservation services charge a fixed fee per booking (or zero fee).
Whilst most reservations can be sourced from an online agency and sent by e-mail, some reservations cannot be sourced online and others are sent by mail and take many days to arrive.
But once mastered it becomes a lot easier.
OOI the most useful companies for Western Europe include 2 dedicated B-Europe sites, 1 for Eurostar and Thalys trains https://www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass#TravelWish , and one for domestic Ouigo (SNCF) trains https://travel.b-europe.com/Eurail-GE/en/booking-tgv#TravelWish , bahn.com (German railways) and oebb.at (Austrian rail but covers Italy bookings as well)
If you want to skip that then booking your seat reservations at the station is a possibility. The only catch here is that each train has a specific number of seats reserved for the global pass so
That is only the case for a number of international TGVs (including Eurostar and Thalys) and EC Switzerland-Italy. Most pass reservations are available until the train is full.
This happened to me when I didn’t book Lyon to Barcelona in time and had to pay 130 Euros for a second class ticket when a first class seat reservation may have cost 15 Euros at the most.
The TGVs to Barcelona don't have pass holder quota anymore since 11/12/2022 :)
From San Sebastián, you need to get the Eusoktren (not included in the pass, I think) to Hendaye. I would book Hendaye-Paris via the Interrail site https://www.interrail.eu/en/book-reservations#/login It’s not the cheapest, but it’s the easiest.
Paris - Amsterdam - book at Interrail or B-Europe for the Thalys, or take regional trains (Much, much slower) if you really want to avoid the fees. https://www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass#TravelWish
The others you can book on ÖBB. https://shop.oebbtickets.at/en/ticket Reservations are optional on Munich-Salzburg.
There are other options - details below (along with instructions): But I think those are what I’d use.
Just for reference :
- Paris - Amsterdam via Maubeuge 8h free
- Paris - Amsterdam via Lille 6h 10€
- Paris - Amsterdam direct 3h20 32€
The websites have already been given. Please use tickets.oebb.at from Salzburg, there's no booking fee
When do you plan to travel?
Thalys (Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam/Cologne) has ordinary tickets from 29 EUR per person (cheapest possibly, usually it’s more expensive).
If you can book quite a bit in advance, an ordinary ticket might be (much) cheaper than a pass day on your Eurail pass (depends on how many days in a month you have, but usually 30-40 EUR for a pass day) + reservation cost (32 EUR).
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