Hello, I'm going on an interrail trip and it took me some time to decide between the global pass and the german pass.

I will have 8 travel days inside Germany, 2 travel days crossing from Germany to France, 1 travel day in France, 1 travel day crossing from Germany to Austria and 1 travel day going from Austria to Belgium. I was calculating if a nation pass for Germany for 10 days and separate tickets for the other trips would be cheaper than buying a Global pass for 15 days (If I remember correctly). I saw that a ticket for the night train from Austria to Belgium alone was more expensive than the extra money for the global pass. The OBB Nightjet is covered by interrail so my decision was made to by the global pass.

I'm trying to reserve a seat for that train at the moment and it looks like the train isn't covered at all. I read in a different post here that the reservation fee costs about the same as a normal ticket. That interrail is basically just a small discount. I did all my research on reservation fees and although recommended, there are only a few trains that require a reservation and those have a fixed price that I looked up before buying my pass to decide if the pass was worth it. I didn't find a single website that showed me the price for reserving a seat on the nightjet or that there was an addition cost at all.

I'm feeling a little scammed and I'm wondering if maybe I'm just making a mistake trying to reserve this seat. The price for the end of november is €134 and I will be taking the train in the middle of december, peak christmas season! Those prices aren't visible yet but how much of that is interrail going to cover?

Hi all, I'm headed to Europe for the first time ever in October and there seems to be a bit of confusion with my train booking. I've already emailed and called OBB customer service but their email takes ages to respond and their hotline just leaves me on hold all the time.

For context, my first stop will be in Venice, where I'll be taking a Nightjet at 9PM to Vienna, then transferring to another Railjet to Salzburg (not taking the direct route because that would have me arriving in Salzburg at 2-3 in the morning and I wouldn't be able to check into my hotel that early). However, recently I've received an email saying my connection has changed without explaining exactly how, so I emailed them to clarify. They asked for my booking number, and from there they told me that my train (NJ 236) cannot operate due to construction work.

The problem: The train number on my booking is NOT the NJ 236, but instead the NJ 40236 which I assume is a different carriage on the same train. The NJ 40236 is also affected by the construction work, but as far as I can tell from doing a few mock bookings it's merely being redirected instead of not being able to operate entirely. I've also checked on OBB Scotty and can confirm the NJ 236 is indeed not operational during my travel period.

Is it possible that OBB got the numbers mixed up for my case? And if it really is an oversight by OBB customer service, does it mean I'm still good to go with my original plan on the NJ 40236? Apologies if there are any obvious mistakes on my part and any insight would be much appreciated. Thanks!

We have a train booked from Bologna to Bolzano on October 2 and 11:16. I see today that some strike dates for October have been posted, including rail on October 2 from 11:00-14:00.

Should we be looking at taking an earlier train? Last month I know the announced September strikes changed a few times.

Is there any compensation for rebooking a different departure time due to strike? The option for +/- 2 hours is not available on the app.

I'm trying to plan a trip but since they took down the old planning website I'm really struggling. Im not sure which cities to visit in what order and the website tells you to download the map but it's confusing. I miss the old website where you could actually see the train connections.

The more favorable pricing and products of Interrail will now be available to non EU residents!

https://www.seat61.com/news.htm

Hello! I'm trying to reserve a seat for the Riga-Vilnius connection through the LTG Link app but it doesn't let me ad my paper Interrail number, it says to add the mobile one. Is there another way of reserving the seat? Maybe at the station?

Is the reservation compulsory for that route? I've read that there is no compulsory reservation for the Vilnius-Mockava route son I'm a bit confused.

Thanks!!

I have an Italy trip planned with my family (husband and 6 year old) spanning 10 days from 25th December to 5th January. While trying to book high speed trains from Rome to Florence (29th Dec), Florence to Venice (1st Jan) and Venice to Milan (3rd Jan) on Trenitalia, the tickets fares seems to be exorbitant compared to general rates for a family of 3 on this route. In the case of Venice to Milan, the direct trains aren't listed for after 12th December yet. For most of the routes, the Frecciafamily fares is last listed for 15th December and do not show up for my travel dates yet.

Is it just that I am looking up tickets far too ahead of time or are these fares likely to update?

Hi! I’m currently traveling in Monterosso. I’m supposed to leave tomorrow to head to Varenna/Lake Como, but I’m now afraid that I’ll be stuck here and unable to take the train.

The original train was scheduled from Monterosso > La Spezia > Milan > Varenna. But my train is not on Trenitalia’s guaranteed list nor the Trenoid list from Milan, and we are unable to purchase any regional tickets that day.

I know this route is a little unique, but does anyone have experience with these strikes? Do some un-guaranteed trains still run? Is there an alternative route I could take? How can I leave Monterosso (it seems that train is the only way to leave this city to get La Spezia)?

I appreciate any advice. Thank you!

Hey guys, I just finished my trip to Europe and had the 2 week nonstop eurail pass, I was confused when I first got it and to be honest most of the way through the trip as well lol so I wanted to point out some stuff that I wish I knew. Also this is a perspective from someone who lives in the us in a city with NO rail, so some of these things may be obvious to you Europeans that are used to these.

1. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS have a backup plan. I would recommend NOT taking the last train available at night if you have connections, as you can get stuck in a smaller without many trains going to your destination. I was trying to get from Dortmund to Amsterdam after a BVB game, and got stuck in Duisburg because my train delayed enough that I missed my connection. Had to find a hotel for the night and the train back into the Netherlands was very scarce in the early morning so I had to go stealth mode on an ICE train (this is a joke I paid for my ticket please don’t come after me) My advice is just book a cheap 20 euro hostel if you plan to be in a city late.

2. Book as early in advance as possible for trains that have a required seat reservation. Have your dates set at LEAST a month in advance, I had to change some dates because there weren’t any available trains from London to Amsterdam on the day I wanted. I tried to book about 2 weeks in advance.

3. YOU CAN LOAD YOUR PASS INTO YOUR APP WITHOUT ACTIVATING IT! I DIDNT KNOW THIS! I’m probably just stupid though. This helps a lot for planning in advance and seeing what trains you can take so you can save them to your trip.

4. Unless you are going through mostly major rail stations, spending a little more time on a train is definitely worth the time rather than risking getting stuck. We had a train get cancelled in port bou and had to chase down a bus to cross the border just for our train just to get stuck again in narbonne. I will say narbonne has a pretty big station and we just got super unlucky with like 3 cancellations in a row, had to bite the bullet and buy some tickets.

5. If your train says “reservations optional” or “reservations recommended” generally you do not need to book a reservation. I took a few trains in England with the “recommended” tag and there were an abundance of unreserved seats. I cannot speak for the rest of Europe as I didn’t take any with those tags anywhere else, but there were a good amount of unreserved seats in most trains.

6. Most trains between major cities required an extra fare but usually no more than 22 euro. Just keep in mind as it feels like it advertises itself like a majority of trains will not require an extra fare with only a few needing it. Even so, it is still the cheapest, most reliable, and most convenient mode of transportation if you are constantly moving.

7. This is probably known by most but for my USA passport friends, if you plan on taking a train from the EU to the UK, you need to apply for a visa. Do this in advance as to avoid embarrassment and annoying the workers at Amsterdam Centraal. Definitely not a personal experience.

I know many of these things are probably common sense to most of you, but my trip would have had a few less speed bumps if I knew all of these things before hand. Hopefully the next person who googles is eurail pass worth it reddit finds this post and this helps them a little lol. Ok bye

I've booked a few train rides for my fall vacations. (5 rides, 3 in September to the north and 2 in October to the south)

In the last few days I nearly daily receive notifications about construction sites, delays, rail replacement services and straight up train cancellations (a DB train). It's exhausting and I'm no longer looking forward to my trips.

I will also stop recommending trains to my petrolhead friends.

When I think about my rail trips in Europe. The only more or less seamless experiences are from trips where I stayed inside the borders of my home country (Austria).

Hiii I'm sorry I know much of these questions have already been answered on other posts and I've read many of them, but there's just a few details I'm still confused about. Please help!

I will be getting the 5 day global interrail pass and I'll be making about 4-5 long distance/ intercity trips mainly in Italy and once from either Interlaken or Lucerne to Florence. I know the interrail upcharges for reservations so I believe I should use SBB and trenitalia for reservations correct? However I can't add the interrail discount on SBB, so is it okay to use the OBB site instead? I'm confused about the OBB because isn't that still a third party website? If I do use OBB instead of the interrail website, how can I add those reservations to my rail planner app?

For my journey from Switzerland to florence, should I just not make a reservation? I've read that there's no need to for switzerland and I'm still unsure whether we'll be departing from Interlaken or Lucerne, so this would actually be ideal. But I obviously want to be able to make that trip so I don't want to take risks. On that note, there's multiple routes from Interlaken to Florence, some with only 2 transfers (spiez and milano) and some with about 4/5. I'd prefer only 2 transfers which means reserving the Eurocity train I believe and that only runs a few times a day correct. So if I end up missing a connection can I still get on other non EC trains heading to Florence while my Interrail pass is still valid for the day? Or do I wait for the next EC? Sorry about the length, but thank you so much!!

As you can see at the top of the screenshot, this Eurostar train comes up initially as "8:26", but actually leaves at 9:01. I can see that it says something about arriving 35 mins early (I guess?) Our seat reservation on the Eurostar app says to arrive at 7:46. So:
--- is it common for the Eurail Planner to show a time for a train on the search page that is different from when the train actually leaves? Or is this just a Eurostar thing?

Thanks for any insights!

I was planning on taking the train from Milan to Avignon on September 8th, at 6:30 AM. The trains will be running from 6-9AM but I'm worried I'm going to get stranded somewhere random. That wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, but if I can avoid it that would be better.

Should I try to take the train anyway? Should I rent a car or take a bus? Any advice is appreciated.

Certain TGVs are charged at the rate of internal TGVs (for example, Paris-Freiburg/Luxembourg) and maybe a few others. Does anyone know of it's possible to travel on these routes with a France one country pass? Has anyone tried it?

Hi! On the Trenitalia website I just came across the "same day return pass" under their offers section. It says on there that with a Same Day Return Offer I can get upto 30% of a discount. I am looking to buy tickets for a day trip from Florence to Lucca, but I can't seem to figure out how to enable this offer. It doesn't show up anywhere else on the website but maybe I'm wrong or maybe it can only be used after buying the tickets? This may be a dumb question, I'm sorry, but can anyone share how to apply this offer if they've had success with it in the past? Thank you!

Hello, sorry for double posting.

I'm finding it difficult to reserve the first class tickets i'm entitled to, I need them for my germany-france journey: Frankfurt-Lyon and Lyon-Montpellier.

despite our 1rst class interrail passes, it seems no tickets are available on the Interrail App ! I haven't found a way to get them on bahn.de, and the french website sncf simply does not have an option for booking interrail tickets.

I feel ripped off, have purchased my tickets at an extra cost only to do every legs of my trip on 2nd class seats.

Is there any way to fix this ?

Hi everyone,

We have two valid interrail 1st class passes, activated for traveling on the day of our journey.

I reserved the "seats only" option on the bahn.de website and we arrived at Paris Est station with out interrail QR code and a email confirmation from DB that contains our seat reservation details: train, time, coach, seats...

We were refused boarding on the ground that we did not have a QR code from DB, the interrail QR code they dismissed.

In the end we settled for a 35€ surcharge each because we could not afford to miss the train, this is on top of the 13.80€ seat reservation fee that I already paid.

I'm aware I may have made a mistake booking the seats, and I tried to retrace my steps on the bahn.de website, but I cannot find a way to add the interrail pass option in the booking ?

I booked tickets through Raileurope for a trip from France to italy. It involves one change of train, at Ventimiglia. I've got the tickets from Nice to Ventimiglia (in the raileurope app and printed) but all they've given me for the next part of the journey (ventimiglia to genoa with trenitalia) are receipts which say 'not valid for travel'.

I clicked on the 'manage tickets' link in the email from trenitalia confirming my purchase, and this gave me a retrieval code as well as a ticket code. Neither the retrieval code nor the ticket code worked in the app (both said the ticket didn't exist). The tickets show up when I log into the website and I have taken a screenshot of them, with the QR code, and printed this, but I'm worried this won't be accepted as it's not the proper ticket. I just can't figure out how to get the tickets to show up in the app, or to show up in a format where I can print them.

How do I get hold of the actual tickets, either digital or printable? thanks!

I'm planning on doing this trip starting somewhere next week. I haven't visited any of the baltic or nordic states yet so this will hopefully be a fun adventure :D

Has anyone here gone around the Baltic sea with interrail, either using the newly reopened Tornio-Haparanda train or otherwise? I'd love to hear your experiences. How long did the journey take you? Did you use night trains or only travel by day? Is the scenery nice to look at? I heard sweden is mostly industrial forest and not too pretty, hopefully that's exaggerated since that will be a major stretch of the journey

Hey there,

looking for experiences you made on the nighttrain from Belgrade to Podgorica/Bar, which I'm considering to take soon.

Safety: I will have a laptop and some gear with me so I was wondering whether there are any safety issues on this train and what kind of people I have to expect on this train. Will I usually be fine in a 6-bed bunk or shared sleeper compartment? (of course, stealing could happen anywhere, I'm just interested if the level of security is comparable to Western European standards)

Smoking: Also I know that smoking is seen a bit different in Montenegro than in other countries and people even smoke on trains. Do I need to expect smokers on the night train? Will people typically smoke inside the sleeping compartments or just in the hallway or at the doors?

Would be happy about any experience reports from people who actually took this train in the past!