Our Rail Europe seats are in different coaches

Thank you- that's what I was afraid of and it makes sense.

I would think your first recourse would be to call RailEurope and ask them to rectify the situation.

If that doesn't work, I have a solution for the second half of your trip. I assume you are going direct (no change of trains) from Stuttgart to Salzburg. That looks like an EC. Go on the German Rail website and put in Stuttgart to Freilassing for the date and time of your train, then check "reservations only" down the page. Make reservations at 4,50€/seat for the train (the German Rail website should reserve you seats together). You need to use Freilassing for the destination because, for some reason, the German Rail website will not sell reservations for a trip ending in Salzburg, outside Germany, even though Salzburg is considered a border station. However, Freilassing to Salzburg is only an 8 minute trip with an EC fare of 6€. If your seats are reserved through to Freilassing, no one is going to reserve those seats for an 8 minute trip to Salzburg Hbf, at almost as much as the fare itself, so you will be able to stay in them.

Actually, if you use Karlsruhe, the first stop in Germany by that TGV, to Freilassing, you should be able to reserve seats on both trains, on the TGV from Paris to Stuttgart, and on the EC, from Stuttgart to Freilassing, for 4,50€ per seat, for the entire trip. You might have to sit apart from Paris to Karlsruhe, or you might find that having those seats reserved from Karlsruhe to Stuttgart prevents anyone from reserving them for the first part of the trip, too.

Another good reason to avoid Rail Europe...

I'd love to know what you paid for these tickets.

Thanks for the advice to call RailEurope- I just did that and they were incredibly helpful. Apparently, even though I purchased the tickets at the same time and selected "add a person" while making the purchase, they went through as separate reservations resulting in the seats not being together. The gentleman who helped me was super nice and helpful and moved the seats so they're now together.. Unfortunately, it cost me an extra $50. An expensive error, but it could have been worse. To the person who asked how much these cost- the total is $311 for both of us. We did purchase the Rail Protection Plan which is $18/ea extra which helped a lot with this situation.

Jeanine, do I understand correctly that the error was the fault of Rail Europe but you had to pay $50 to correct it?

Interesting. I looked at Paris-Salzburg on the en.voyages-sncf site for May 20. Two 2nd class tickets are listed as 242 euro (~$268 US). Then Paris to Stuttgart was 78 euro (~$86 US) and from DB, the connecting train to Salzburg was 49 euro (~$54 US). So its almost double the price when you book a through ticket.

Oh my gosh, they charged you $50 to move your seat??? Please please please people - stop using Rail Europe.

For 2 people in 2nd class, German Rail sells Savings Fare tickets leaving from Paris at 7:25 through to Salzburg at 15:41 (with changes in Stuttgart and Munich) for as low as 98€ ($106). Seat reservations for Paris to Stuttgart and Stuttgart to Munich (Munich to Salzburg is by regional trains - no seat reservations) would be 4,50€ each person.

Hi,

That is one reason why I don't get my rail Pass through Rail Europe, but given your situation I'm glad it turned out well in the end even though at the expense of a service fee of $50. I went to EurAide once to bring to their attention that the controller punched not on the day number, say day 3, but exactly on the line separating day 3 and day 4. A direct hit. I wanted to avoid any dispute with the next controller. EurAide just wrote a note on the back of the Pass, stamped DB, told me to show that if any dispute arises on the day # to be punched. This was free of charge. It turned out to be unnecessary since the next DB controller upon looking at the Pass, hearing my explanation on what had happened didn't dispute anything, and punched exactly on the correct day number. No need to show the EurAide note.

I have to say that this practice is borderline illegal. Rail Europe is absolutely preying on the unsuspecting traveler. Do you think that Europeans pay these kind of prices?

To charge $50 - are you kidding me? You could have gone to the train station just before the trip and bought seat reservations for about 5 Euro.

And a rail protection plan - that is total BS. So the bottom line is that you just paid Rail Europe $397 for tickets that should have cost you $115.

My personal experience with RE has been different than some of the posts above.
I don't think it's fair to just generalize about them and blanket criticize them.
As with any website or transportation option, you have to use it carefully--knowing what your other options are, reading the details of the RE purchase, and double checking before you click the Purchase Now button.
For a recent example from personal experience, recently I got a good fare from Rail Europe, close to the same as the SNCF, and RE took my credit card no problem and no hassle to print it out at home. RE at least knows how to do customer service, can't say the same for some national train sites. Sometimes convenience and customer service is worth a few more euros.

It seems like they know how to do customer service - to the tune of $50!

I'm sorry, but I think I have seen more than enough to generalize about Rail Europe.

If some here are going to make a general or blanket criticism of a company, I think fairness requires that some evidence, based on personal experience, be provided.
I've had one experience with them and provided the specifics.

Ok - here's one:

My parents are visiting here in May. My dad was trying to buy a tickets from Salzburg to Vienna. He called me before clicking the purchase button (thankfully!). RE was charging $82 for this trip. You can buy tickets from Westbahn for the same journey for $27 (you buy the tix on the train, doesn't get any more convenient than that). You can also book this ticket in advance on www.oebb.at for 19 Euro. Needless to say, he will go on Westbahn.

Emily, thank you for providing evidence for your statements.
My experience with them has been otherwise, but I can see that you have had a different experience.

I can't talk about their customer service, because I have never used them. But I have often compared what they charge for German trains vs what the Bahn charges online (which is why I would never use them), and I can say that they always (as far as I can tell) charge more (15% on a good day) than what the Bahn charges. Plus add possible shipping charges, and the return/exchange policies are better with the Bahn.

I'm pretty sure R/E is the entity I called a few years ago to find out if you need to have Germany included on a rail pass with Austria to take one of the Austrian trains (ÖIC at that time) from Salzburg to Innsbruck (those trains go across German via Rosenheim without stopping at stations in Germany), and R/E said" yes". I later checked with the ticket desk in Salzburg, and they said "No". It is an Austrian train going non-stop through Germany. It is not carrying passengers to/from German stations. Germany is not needed on a Eurail pass.

I have had only one experience with RE, that was in France in the last month or so, and they simplied (for me) payment and the fare was competitive with what SCNF was showing. And payment and printout out tickets at home was easier on RE, that was just my personal experience.

For 2 people in 2nd class, German Rail sells Savings Fare tickets leaving from Paris at 7:25 through to Salzburg at 15:41 (with changes in Stuttgart and Munich) for as low as 98€ ($106).

Just want to put in another plug for my favorite Europe train search engine, capitainetrain.com You can find that 98E fare on their site. They are one of a new class of resellers that have access to the internal reservation systems of the national train lines, so they can search for the best fare or fare combination via multiple carriers and then they sell the tickets at face value (they get a commission from the rail lines).

If I hear any specific news for jeanineww, I'll let her know.

As a bit of background, signing direct-access contracts with each national railway and coordinating those computer systems to work together all takes time. Rail Europe does have good access to a range of advance-purchase fares and e-ticketing at least with Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, that I know of. They had it set up with Spain, but then the reservation software changed. In other cases, products are filtered through France, which seems to be the source of the price difference between separate booking and through booking on this route. They sell a larger variety of products than any other supplier accessible in the USA, which can be a convenience. But no one agent does everything. Capitainetrain also works with a limited number of country suppliers. Neither company sells WestBahn, which is probably part of WestBahns's low-fare strategy and works for a company that come into existence in the internet age.

When you compare Rail Europe's rates with the "typical credit card" exchange rate for different currencies (I would not use the bank rate, if you are not a bank), you will probably notice some padding. Exchange rate adjustments are made frequently, but they are not automated, so some cushion is reasonable to protect RE against market flux.

I metioned this thread to my wife because we have had extensive train travel in Europe. She said that maybe sitting apart would not be a bad thing. It would give each of you some time to yourselves and you would have a chance to talk to somebody different. There is some wisdom in that observation.

I would not call charging 3X the fare offered by the actual train operator "some padding." I call it outrageous. This is but one of dozens of similar examples I have seen on this website alone. And don't even get me started with the $50 fee to change seats. Total crazytown.

Rail Europe's $82 rate (with seat reservation included) from Salzburg to Vienna is comparable to OEBB's regular rate of €54.10 on the RailJet. French rail charges €60 for the reserved ticket, and that additional middle man seems to be part of the issue, which I believe also applies for Czech Republic, Slovenia, and countries east of there. That is a good reason to go direct to the railway source, which is easy to do with OEBB, and you'd also be money ahead if you chose one of their limited number of SparScheine/discount fares (with ticket restrictions).

You would see a much smaller price gap for those countries where RE has a direct ticket connection, primarily the western part of Europe. Other Travel Forum threads have some French, German, and Italian examples.

For other countries that don't offer advance discounts or equally accessible web sites, you can buy tickets in train stations. The subject of Buying European Train Tickets is not as simple as anyone would like it to be, which is why this web site describes a variety of sources and procedures.

Whenever I have needed train tickets in advance, I've checked Rail Europe and the country rail sites. More times than not, Rail Europe has been significantly more expensive. They also don't have all of the trains that the country sites do. But twice I've found tickets that were the same price as or slightly more expensive than the country rail site, so I bought them on Rail Europe. It was much easier, faster and less stressful. So why not check there first? I have never used their customer service so can't comment on that.

Rail Europe doesn't even LIST all of the trains for a particular route leading you to believe that you either don't have any other choices or that they may be sold out. I've seen more than a handful of stressed newbie travelers talking about how their train is sold out or they didn't KNOW there was a later or earlier train...all because they ONLY looked at RE. I also used them many years ago to purchase EuroStar tickets from London to Paris. Chose my train submitted my credit card and was charged. Only THEN did RE bother to contact me to tell me what I bought wasn't actually available, but here's what they COULD give me. And how many times have I witnessed the newbie travelers in Venice being rather frantic after their hotel told them their train ticket to their next destination didn't actually leave from Venice but rather from Mestre and they would need an additional ticket. But the customer had bought a ticket from RE from Venice to Milan and, well, RE didn't bother to ask them which STATION in Venice they wanted or which STATION in Milan they wanted...just all rather amateurish.

Yes, RE might be useful if you invest the time and effort into learning how to buy rail tickets from the actual country rail websites and then comparing with the RE site...but if you're going to invest the time it takes to learn that then why even BOTHER with RE???

Short fact is don't!

Norma,
Rail Europe said the way I ordered them resulted in two separate tickets with seats apart from each other although I ordered them together, I didn't click the "add a person" at the correct time. So, it was my fault. It's pretty bad. I will be exploring other options for the remainder of our train trips when we're over there. I appreciate the resources suggested by other people and will explore these prior to booking any other train tickets.

When pratically every passenger rail company in Europe has a website, in English, that can generate their full schedules and explain everything IN ENGLISH, and will accept credit card payment, what possible value can Rail Europe offer, other than to serve as a deceptive and expensive middleman?

I never use Rail Europe for the reasons mentioned, but one thing about their customer service I will say from experience: I purchased a TGV ticket from the French rail website but there was no print-at-home option. I had a short connection time and a change in train stations and had to retrieve my ticket from a station. There was no way I could do that from Brussels, with the connection time so short. So I went to a Rail Europe boutique in Brussels and they printed out the ticket form me (10 euro charge), even though I had not bought the ticket from RE. That is really convenient in a pinch.