OBB tickets-should we reserve seats online?

The booking process on OBB does say, "There are no reservation options available for this journey!" If they have given you seat assignments automatically, then your ticket should have some form of the terms car/Wagon and seat/Platz, which might be abbreviated as just a letter or two, followed by numbers. Seat assignments are (only) compulsory for the portion of the trip within Italy. If there really are none, then you can stop at a train station or travel agency to book them earlier in your trip for about $5 per person.

I had this same question when I was booking trains for my trip to Vienna coming up. If the train requires a seat reservation, they'll make you book it along with the ticket. If it doesn't require one, they will not, however, you can go back and book one after the fact by doing a search on the OBB website and where it says "Who is travelling?" hit the button that says "More" on the right and then select "Reservation only." This will allow you to just purchase seat reservations for a specific train. You can also sometimes select what kind of car you'd like to be on and whether you want a window or aisle seat.

Like Laura said, there are some trains that just don't allow you to make seat reservations for some reason, I think the slower/smaller trains do not allow it but that's just a guess from what I saw.

Hello Alyssa, thanks so much for your explanation of how to make a reservation for a train in Austria if you already have a rail pass. That was very helpful! Jackie

You are very welcome Jackie! Enjoy! :)

Hi zosialiv,
May I please ask what month you will be travelling on those tickets?
I wonder if you would be able to update this thread as to what happened on the day e.g. if there was any issues with getting seats on the train? and how full the train was?
I have bought the same tickets for the same trip in September, and despite the "No reservations available" message on the OEBB.com wesbite, I was told that it was recommended to have seat reservations since it's a long trip and my travel date falls on a busier Friday.
I have since been struggling to find a cheaper and easier way to get the seat reservations.
Please let me know how the trip went for you and your family.

I had a booking on oebb for Zell Am See to Venice. Part of that was by bus. We didn't have assigned seats and had no trouble sitting together. And this was in June of this year.

Jenny

I am going from Vienna to Prague in September by train. Does one save money booking early or are these local type trains where it doesn't matter. The site doesn't want to let me make seat reservations; do I need to in order to have a seat?