Booking Train Reservations

• If you are booking a seat reservation through DB or OBB, then you would choose "Seat only" reservations, unless you're booking an overnight train. Seat reservations are optional on daytime trains within these two countries and the DB site gives you a good indication of any time when reservations are compulsory. These sites don't usually sell pass holder reservations on international trips. Although DB will book a sleeper-only reservation from Munich to Venice, I don't see that OBB has that option for their train to Venice.
• Don't expect to be able to select your seats in most cases. The computer will always try to book you together.
• Rather than booking by phone with Rail Europe, which comes with added fees, I would book reservations on their web site for the night train and perhaps a few others that you really need (especially any TGV in France). But if you are willing to pay more, then the phone agent can put a little more effort into bed/seat selection.
• Another option is to email your list of requested trains to Karen at [email protected]. She can book them through Euraide's office in Germany and send them to you, about $30 for delivery and $30 if you need more advice.

Go to www.seat61.com. It may be too late to exchange your Eurail passes for a refund but most avoid Rail Europe. You can easily book your own travel following the guidelines at seat61.com. Reviews on sleeper trains vary from tolerable to terrible so you might also do some thinking about the method of travel between Vienna and Venice. Using seat61.com you can book your tickets and select your seats as well for any train travel across Europe. Go to www.tripadvisor.com, Vienna forum or Venice forum, and ask about sleeper trains between the two cities for specific up to date advice.

Seat 61 also links you to Rail Europe for many pass holder reservations, particularly international trips like this night train that can't be booked on a single-country web site.

It's a dirty little secret of rail passes that reservations are often required but difficult to get. "Reservations" are not really a seat reservation, but a surcharge for what that country feels are "premium" trains, the price of which is not fully covered by a rail pass. Tickets for these trains come with a seat reservation, so you get one when you pay the surcharge. For this reason, rail passes are no longer the bargain they once were.

(In Germany, seat reservations are not usually required but, except for cross border trains, are easier to get.)

You can always wait until you get to Europe and pay for the reservations, if any are still available, at a ticket counter over there. However, in some cases, passholder reservation (i.e., surcharges) are limit in number on a given train, so even on a train that is not sold out, passholder reservations might not be available. Euraide sells you reservations for the same price as you would pay at a station in Europe. However, they do charge a fee for getting the tickets and shipping them to you.

I can't for the life of me figure out why people continue to purchase Eurail Passes. They're more expensive than point to point tickets, they come with added reservations fees and surcharges, are difficult to use, and sometimes can't be used at all because certain trains only allow a limited number of Eurail Pass passengers.

But people continue to buy them.

I'm not a big fan of rail passes. I agree they don't often pay off, but they can. Basically, if you will make a lot of long trips each pass day, and you haven't planned what you are doing, so you need flexibility, then a rail pass might be the best option. I won't say, "make sense", because that kind of travel doesn't make sense to me. Making long leaps is time and cost ineffective, and not planning is just setting up your trip to fail.