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Hi,

 

For trains that do NOT require reservations:

 

If I go from A to B and add+activate the ticket for a train scheduled at 10AM: can I also use that for the same train, route, at 1PM?

No, you just delete the train you are not taking and add the one you will be taking.

 

There is no benefit to activating well in advance of using, you can add multiple journeys to your trip and just activate the correct one before you join the train.


You should not activate the journey by connecting it to your pass until just before boarding the train. Please read more about that in the advice from the experienced travellers in the community 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 ticket 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.


Re activating the pass is not an issue for me: global pass so no travel days to count. I was just wondering why a train ticket for a local train needs to be the exact time. In Belgium you buy a ticket for today and you can hop on any train for that route. Meaning if I don't know yet which (without reservation 'eeded)  train I'll take tomorrow, I 'eed to add all and select the one before boarding, or stress minutes before taking the train to find it (if eurail has the right times loaded)

 

 

 

 


Re activating the pass is not an issue for me: global pass so no travel days to count. I was just wondering why a train ticket for a local train needs to be the exact time. In Belgium you buy a ticket for today and you can hop on any train for that route. Meaning if I don't know yet which (without reservation 'eeded)  train I'll take tomorrow, I 'eed to add all and select the one before boarding, or stress minutes before taking the train to find it (if eurail has the right times loaded)

 

All very good points and indeed passes would be much more user friendly without this nonsense. Sadly instead of acting like adults and doing it themselves through their checking procedures the constituent railways (or at least some of them) insist on this as a way of apportioning whose trains users are on.

Mind though, before you go applauding Belgian Railways it should be noted that unlike most national operators they offer no multi-use pass tickets themselves, very poor effort.


Your added journey should match the train that you're on otherwise it will not be considered valid for travel. If your travel plans change, you can easily delete the old journey and add a new one. Please make sure that the new journey is added *before* you get on the train. 


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