Eurail Pass and Reservations

If I understand question 1, you cannot buy the Rail pass once you are in the country. Must be purchased in advance. Prices can vary some depending on the markup by the various resellers. So check around. Prices are fixed. IF a seat reservation is required, then there will be a surcharge for using that train and it includes the seat reservation. In Italy all trains except the Regional require a seat reservation and, therefore, a surcharge. The surcharge is greater for the fast trains than for the IC. The same hold for the other countries but I think many of their trains are mixed - reservation and non-reservation. If you want a reservation you have to pay for it. And I think in France there are limits to the number of seats available. However, my experience will France and Switzerland is less extensive so get a second opinion,

From the Eurail website, "Can I buy Eurail passes in Europe? "Not all Eurail passes are for sale in Europe. The prices of Eurail passes are on average 20% higher in Europe than online at Eurail.com. We therefore recommend that you buy your pass before your trip. If you are already in Europe, we can ship the pass to you at any European address, such as your hotel. "Many larger train stations throughout Europe sell Eurail passes, like a station with a Eurail aid office." Eurail aid office, not to be confused with Euraide. Then they give a list of the rail passes that are sold in Europe, which does not include all the passes available in this country before you leave. So, if it is more expensive to buy the pass in Europe, why not buy it now. If you buy it from Rick, he includes some bonuses. One of the dirty little secrets of rail passes is that, except for German Rail, it's often difficult to purchase reservations from over here. You can get them from RailEurope, but at a much higher price. If you wait until your travel day over there, you might find that the pass holder reservations are sold out and you might have to buy a full fare ticket.

You might be able to save money by booking point-to-point discount fare tickets in advance for trains in France and Italy. It's possible the only pass that you will need is one of the Swiss passes. When are you taking this trip? What is your city-to-city itinerary?

Tim is correct. If you can spend some time in advance investigating the point-to-point tickets, you can get some great fares in all three countries by buying in advance. We already have great fares in Spain and France for some of our upcoming travel there. Note also, that in Switzerland, youths under 16 travel at 1/2 fare. And, you you purchase the youth pass for 30CHF, they travel free everywhere as long as they travel with you and you have a valid ticket (any valid ticket and not necessarily a pass or card). Also know that in Italy, you will pay a 10E supplemental fee for each high-speed that you travel on.

Thank you so much for all the help. It's been invaluable, and led us to majorly reconsider investing in a Eurail Pass. I figured providing a day-to-day itinerary will enable everyone to help us better plan how to go about this. We're a family of four (including two of us in the 16-25 age bracket) We will be traveling across Western Europe for about a fortnight this October, and this is what the itin looks like: 30th September - 4th October: London 4th - 7th October: Paris 7th: Paris – Geneva (point-to-point?) 8th – 12th: Switzerland (Swiss Pass?) 12th: Geneva – Turin (point-to-point?) 13th: Turin – Rome (point-to-point?) 13th – 16th: Rome 16th: Rome – Milan (point-to-point?) 16th night: Fly to India Within Switzerland, we will be based in Geneva and will be traveling mostly on day-trip across the country, which is why the Swiss Pass must make sense on some level. Plus, we'd like some flexibility there. Here's what we're thinking of doing while there: 7th: Montreaux (day trip) 8th: Zermatt (day trip) 9th: Lucerne/Lauterbrunnen – spend the night 10th: Return to Geneva
11th: Spend day in city – CERN / UN headquarters / hike along the lake etc. Does it then make sense to invest in a Swiss Pass for 7th – 10th? And does a Swiss Pass cover tram travel in cities, boats, cable- cars etc?

For the rest, here are some questions: 1. To avail youth discounts, are all IDs issued by educational institutions accepted? Is it worthwhile buying the International Student Exchange Card available online(http://www.isecard.com/)? 2. I am unable to figure out how to calculate fares for the trains between Paris - Geneva, and Geneva – Turin from any of the official rail pages. Any help? 3. Does it make more sense to fly any of these? Rome – Milan, for example? The cheaper flights have very stringent baggage limits, which is why we are so wary. But if we manage to pack light (and have only carry-ons) for the entire trip, does it make sense to fly RyanAir or EasyJet? 4. For the point-to-point tickets, I'm still not completely clear where to pick them up. The Italian and Swiss rail acceot eTickets? What about the Paris – Geneva route? Do we pick them up from specific locations in Paris itself?

London-Paris: If you book your Eurostar tickets today at eurostar.com, you still can get discount fare tickets totalling £158 for the four of you for a few of the departure times on 4 October. Print your own tickets. Paris-Geneva: If you book today at tgv-europe.com, you still can get discount fare tickets totalling €210 for the four of you at certain departure times on 7 October. To keep the site in English and to avoid being bumped to the Rail Europe site which doesn't offer discount fares, choose Great Britain as your ticket retrieval country. You will be able to either print the tickets yourself or pick them up at any mainline SNCF station in Paris. Geneva-Turin: Your fastest route is Geneva-Chambery-Turin, but you also could go Geneva-Milan-Turin. Geneva-Chambery on a regional train will cost a total of 80 CHF for all four of you. No discount for advance purchase. If you book today at tgv-europe.com, you still can get discount fare tickets totalling €124 for the four of you. Pick them up in Paris. Turin-Rome: If you are willing to take an IC train rather than a high-speed EuroStar Italia train, you still can get a Mini fare of €36/person. Book today at trenitalia.com and choose "Ticketless with payment receipt via email." Rome-Milan: There is an IC train that departs at 08:22 and arrives at 15:15. Mini fare tickets of €25/person are still available for 16 October. For certain departure times you still can get a promo fare of €54.50 on a high-speed ES train. Book at trenitalia.com. I wouldn't recommend flying on any of your routes, including Rome-Milan. It's 3hr30min on ES trains, which is faster than flying after you factor in the time it takes to get to and from airports. I'd still choose the 6hr53min on an IC train over flying. Sit back and relax. No airport hassles.

Go to this page to see all your Swiss Pass and Swiss Card choices and what is covered by each one. In my previous post the €124 for four tickets booked on tgv-europe.com was for Chambery-Turin.

Thanks you for all the great advice. We have, for now, booked point-to-point tickets between London-Paris and Paris-Geneva for decent fares. But (probably owing to the fact that we waited too long) a calculation of fares in the latter half of our itinerary (Switzerland and Italy) suggests we'll benefit from buying a Eurail Pass, even if we keep in mind the extra costs. Or that's what we THINK at least. What we were now wondering was - if we bought a Eurail Pass, and wanted to make reservations online today itself, is it possible? Or will it have to happen in person? The Eurail website vaguely says something about being able to make reservations across the DB Bahn counters in the UK. But if we wanted to do it earlier, what are our options? We wanted to makes reservations for basically these three sectors: Geneva-Chambrey- Turin, Turin-Rome, Rome-Milan. Ideas?

You're welcome! You will be on a regional train from Geneva to Chambery. There is open seating and no reservations are possible. You can buy seat reservations for Chambery-Turin, Turin-Rome, and Rome-Milan from EurAide; but you will have to call their United States phone number to do it. For one $50 US fee you can buy all the reservations you want for all the trains you want at in-Europe prices. See this page.

Okay, so we're still trying to work out our point-to-point options. Either to save on pass days or to not have to buy one at all! We were looking at an IC train that takes us from Turin to Rome for 84 Euros (all four of us), and it sounds like an attractive deal. We'll be saving on accommodation at Turin that night and getting more hours in the eternal city :) The question was - how much extra would a second class couchette cost per person on a journey like that? I've been trying to find out with Trenitalia, but it's not yielding any results.

Trenitalia shows these fares for the direct Turin-Rome night train. Reclining seats: Standard 2nd class fare of €44.50 and a Mini fare of €18.00. Bunks in a 4-person couchette: Standard fare of €70.60 and a Mini fare of €49.00. Railpass: €3.00 for a reclining seat and €33.00 for a couchette bunk.

Okay, I feel really dumb asking, but where are you getting the couchette prices from? What's the procedure?