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Reservation Fee High Cost

Posted by on

I made a reservation fee on a high speed train in Europe using a link that came with my Eurail purchase. The train was to go from Pairs to Zurich. The fees were as follows: 35 Euro for the reservation and a booking fee of 8 Euros. It turned out to be $46 on my credit card. Is this unusual? What can I do to avoid this high cost?

it is very upsetting to this 60 year old who used to get on trains with a Eurail pass in the 80's and 90's with no reservation and no extra fees.

I have spent the money and have to pay the credit card bill so what done is done as my mother used to say.

Thanks in advance

Posted by
4535 posts

Very frankly, Eurail passes went passe in the '90s. They rarely have value anymore. Most long distance trains (and many shorter too) now are high-speed and require seat reservations, an extra cost and hassle with a pass. Most lines offer discounts for advance purchases (as long as you can lock in your travel). And many rail lines make it difficult to reserve with passes (sometimes you need to reserve in person or they limit pass holder tickets for each train).

In the future, go online for the country's rail line and book your tickets individually, hopefully with a discount.

Posted by
11613 posts

35 euro + 8 euro = 43 euro, the credit card converted your payment to dollars, according to your post, so that's the difference in price(€43 versus $46.

Posted by
23462 posts

You cannot in France. France is not pass friendly so they charge a high reservation fee and limits the number of seats available for passholders. The days of a railroad pass being a no-brainer decision are long gone. Now you have to carefully evaluate a pass to determine if it is cost effective.

Posted by
16894 posts

The direct Paris-Switzerland service by TGV Lyria has the highest pass holder reservation fee of any train and that is the correct price. See for instance our France rail page and Select Pass page. I don't know which vendor would be selling these in euros; our Rail Europe link is in dollars. Upgrades on this train line are fairly recent, making it much faster than it was 30 years ago.

Posted by
19159 posts

"Reservation fee" is a misnomer. Although it does come with a seat reservation, which is also included with any full fare ticket for that train, it is really a surcharge to use what they consider a premium train, a train better than what a rail pass is good for. There are probably much slower regional connection to the same city and you can board those regional train without fees with a rail pass. And, yes, they often limit the number of reservations for pass holders on a given train.

Today, in many countries, a rail pass is just a basic pass. It will get you there, eventually, but if you want to get there fast, you'll pay extra.

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