stranded/ delays/ eurrail customers service/ flix bus

This is a tricky one. Since you didn't activate your pass, you had no ticket, and no contract to travel.

It’s the same as if you had turned up at the station, intending to buy a ticket from the ticket desk, and then decided against it when you saw the train was delayed. (And I’ve fallen foul of exactly the same).

No contract = no right to refund/ rerouting/ accommodation.

It’s unfortunate, because if you *had* activated your travel day, you would have been entitled to use it on the following day if necessary (or ask Interrail for an extra day), and you would almost certainly have been entitled to claim hotel costs (there must have been a hotel with availability somewhere in or near Mannheim).

As it is, I can’t think how you would be able to claim your costs back. You do still have a the travel day - it’s possible you could get some reimbursement for an abandoned journey.

The only thing you can do now is get a refund for your reservation, from the place where you bought it.

If it didn't run, or if the announced delay was at least an hour, then you have the right not to travel and get a full refund.

The issue is I only booked a 5 pass because I only had 5 journeys! There is now an empty travel day that I have no need for — I wouldn’t have booked the pass this way, so no need for the other travel day. There was no other direct route that would get me there in any reasonable time hence the flix bus. Was also anxious about dropping too much on a hotel if the comp wouldn’t work hence the more budget option even though it didn’t work out! On the forums it seemed like most people only activated the pass right before travelling and this is my first time with the pass so I blindly took the advice! Tricky situation and was an overnighter international so one of my more expensive trips that let me justify the $500 I spent on the pass :((

​@inez0025 

In this type of situation, a travel insurance can be useful, but you should check that incidents related to public transportation are covered during the trip ans not only before departure. The insurance company may also refuse reimbursement if the transportation provider is responsible for offering alternative solutions or accommodation.

Travel insurance only offers to cover for strikes and weather, letter I got from DB doesn’t say anything of that description so can’t show them anything specific. Any other time I would have swallowed the flix bus cost and used the travel day later but I so carefully planned my trip for just those days and now the $500 seems a bit wasteful. Hoping eurrail might have some compassion for the fact that once the first delay happened I couldn’t even activate the pass as it hit midnight and was “in the past” — no staff at station and no other direct route in the next 6 hours! 

​@inez0025 

When you travel, you must also assume a residual risk. In my opinion, you cannot except that you will always obtain assistance and a refund in every situation. This year, some tourists were stranded for several days in the Middle East due to a war, in comparison losing €90 for a bus doesn't seem a big problem, 

If you cannot assume this residual risk, let a travel agency organize your trips. or travel with a group and a guide. 

I think you’re entitled to a refund for that travel day, since you weren’t able to use it through no fault of your own.

Whether that’s 20% of the cost of your pass, or just the price difference down to a 4-day pass, I don’t know. (But I suspect the latter!)

But as you suggest above, you might get some compassion.

Well shock horror! I submitted my Eurrail support question to the Eurrail support forum. Not the national news! Can both recognise a mistake and also be curious to ask if anyone has had similar experiences. Again, because this is the support forum for Eurrail passes. Not the news. Thanks. 

I’m not so sure about this one.

Having a reservation (for a reservation-compulsory service) indicates that the intent was fully there to take the train.  The fact that the train was cancelled and alternative transport was arranged on the spot means that the intention to get to Prague was real and *would have been met by train* if the train was running as expected.

I don’t think it would be viewed sympathetically if the user had activated a day at 01:00 knowing that there was no train.  They did the right thing by not activating the day and as a result they seem to have ended up in a worse position than if they had activated it.

The general recommendation on the forum here is “don’t activate a day unless you are sure you are going to travel” - this user didn’t activate a day because it was apparent that their train wasn’t running, not because they no longer needed to get to their destination.

At least part of the issue comes down to this- “. . . if the transportation provider is responsible for offering alternative solutions or accommodation . . .”

Picture this - you are on a platform at 01:00 with a reservation for a train that is due.  There are no staff around.  There is nobody to contact.  There is no train for the next 6 hours.  There is a responsibility on the carrier to handle this.  They can’t make a train appear out of nowhere, they can’t get staff to the platform.  They also can’t just abandon their customer with no assistance or compensation.

It's the former. If indeed you can't use it anymore, then you're entitled to be refunded the pro-rata amount, for the same reason that you can get a refund of the reservation. It's based on EU regulation 2021/782, article 18(1), option (a):

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32021R0782#art_18

Eurrail support cannot quite seem to decipher it. I arrived at the station shockingly early (about 6 hours to kill) and had heard so many horror stories about DB night trains on these forums that I just thought I should wait to see that the train seemed to be running on schedule. Quite evidently it was not, and even if I had wanted to, couldn’t have activated my pass past midnight. With a train scheduled for 22:49, the first announcement of delay came at about 22:40 that it was pushed back till after 0:00. I was too stressed about being stranded than to bother thinking about toggling my pass. Then the subsequent delays, then the cancellation with no staff!  So no way to toggle the pass and no way to get to my destination! 

​@Eurail Community Moderator