Eurail Newbee Questions

1. Some companies have a limit for pass holders, others don't. How far in advance you can reserve seats also varies from company to company. But no, you don't need to buy them as soon as they are available. The price is the same and you can buy them a week before if you want. One of the advantages of a pass is flexibility, especially in countries like Germany where seat reservation rarely are mandatory. But if you're planning to buy seat reservations half a year in advance, there isn't much room for flexibility anymore.

2. If you make three purchases for one seat each, you might end up in different parts of the train. But if you make a single purchase and buy three seat reservations, you will most likely end up next to each other.

There are no pass holder contingents in the countries you are travelling to. And in those countries tickets and reservations are separate. And with a pass you have a ticket.
Most trains do not require reservations. A lot of trains do not even take reservations. Where reservations are possible you do not need to do them half a year in advance.

If you really feel you need to book all your trips half a year in advance you should not get a pass at all...

The whole point of an Eurail Pass is to be flexible. I would only reserve the night trains (if any) in advance, and not bother with reserving seats in day time trains till you here. Stay flexible. You can reserve seats at the station for example.

If you do want to make reservations in advance go to the railways' own website. You can do "seat only" bookings on www.db.de, www.oebb.at, and www.cd.cz

By making the reservations separate directly with the railway you will have no problem having seats together.

All of the trains may not be showing up now for September. For instance, you already bought seat reservations for Hamburg-Dresden, which I imagine has a train change in Berlin. There are direct EC trains from Hamburg to Dresden showing on the schedule in July, but not scheduled after August 1. It may show up later in the year.

Most of your trains probably do not require seat reservations. People in Europe just don't book that far ahead. So staying awake until midnight to buy seat reservations 6 months in advance is just making you stay up past your bed time. If you are looking at a sleeping compartment in a night train, that I would get as early as possible since these are limited. Night trains are making a comeback.

other thing to be aware of: There is no such thing as an European Rail System. Every country has its own railway operator(s) and they all do things differently. So do not expect that the reservation horizons are the same everywhere for example. International trains are usually operated jointly by the operators of each country, so for example for a Germany - Poland train you can book your reservations with both the German and the Polish railways...

Do you need seat reservations? Of course not and they arent even available for the local commutter trains. But where they are available when you get on the train without a seat reservation, of course you know how to determine which seats are reserved and which are not. Correct? Some trains do mark the seats, many dont or its not complete because seats got booked at the last minute. On a lot of trains you sit till you are asked to move, then you sit again until asked to move again. The request could be after the third stop and not at the begining of the journey; or several times. Three of you? Great fun. A seat reservation Vienna to Budapest for instance will cost you 3 euro. Just get it. Get it early so the three of you end up at a table together. Get to the table first and a good chance no one will pick seat 4.

Sure, you can wing it. Why not? If you are winging the seat reservations, I presume you are also winging the hotel reservations?

As for Eurail, dont know about it. Not sure about all of your stops, but if I were to guess by looking at your list of countries, buying individaul tickets would cost you maybe 75 to 150 euro per person ... with seat reservations ... if you did a bit of shopping at the individual websites of each country and RegioJet (private train company). If you did go that way, for the Vienna to Budapest ticket check the prices from OBB (Austrian company) and from MAV (Hungarian company). Sometimes the MAV ticket is cheaper for the same train, same day, same time. But not always. It can end up costing 15 euro if you choose well.

When you get to planning the week in Budapest, do come to the Hungary forum.

Thanks for your replies and the information you provided. My main concern on reservations is a night train from Budapest to Munich on a Sunday night, and apparently that non-stop train gets booked immediately. I tried the Hungarian, Austrian, and German sites for availability 6 months from today, and nothing available even for days less than 6 months. My only explanation is that there is so much demand for passengers to arrive in Munich early Mondays. I will verify with a test reservation tomorrow morning at 12:01 AM Budapest time and see if it would be at all open (train EN 50462).

I am currently working with the Eurail office to get the 3 individual passes exchanged for a single 3-passenger pass.

Giving up driving on this trip, after several using the French short-term lease program. I'm hoping that trains will be a welcome alternative from constant worrying about changing speed limits, zero emission zones, and parking that are inherent with having the freedom of a car for transport.

Bravo for not driving, the climate thanks you! It will be wonderful in a wholly different way. I'll be using a 2 month rail pass, in March and April, with half of that time in France where TGV trains require a reservation.

On that night train Budapest to Munich something fishy. Might not be running. There are a few direct trains during the day if you still want to flight global warming or you can fly on Lufthansa for $125 to $150 in an hour and ten minutes. The budapest airport is a snap and the bus to the airport is about $6.

There is some dodgy information being given to the OP from some source about the night train. It is not non stop- it makes 11 intermediate stops- one of which is at Salzburg for 2 hours to take on more parts of the train from other cities.
It ends up a lot longer than it starts out as in Budapest.

For a train which allegedly books up 6 months ahead there is sleeper availability this Sunday and next. In fact I am struggling to find any Sunday (or any other day of the week) when there isn't availability. Booking is currently available until mid July- which is 6 months out.

There is a short period in May when the train is not running due to construction work, but that is the only issue I can see.

For information (although it is not a Nightjet train) it is sold by Nightjet and that is the website I am looking at.

Yes, I did realize the train had intermediate stops, but not having to change cars is to me a "non-stop" when trying to sleep. I went through the OBB Nightjet website, and no openings are offered until the 17th, and for tickets plus reservations only. The BH website will let me make reservations only for seats on earlier dates, but apparently the Eurail Pass is of no value because the site blocks out on the dates when tickets w/ reservations are available, but availability disappears for reservations only. I know that July to Sept will have a lot more demand than trains in January, so I'm going to change plans and forget the idea of that train with a pass that isn't helping. Going to rethink the whole Eurail Pass situation.

I dont have an opinion on Eurail Pass thing, just what i read on here and it seems to be the right choice less often than more. Go to the national sites and add up the cost. and see where you are. I suspect it isnt much. And not to worry, its easy to say non-stop when you mean direct and everyone here knows exactly what you mean. Or maybe I'm the one to do it? But then everyone knows what I mean even if ...... Too bad if you dont make the night train work. I went to Deutsche Bahn and to MAV and checked a few dates I got the same stuff you got. Too wanky that I would want to mess with and that is realy unusual for a train.

I did my first two night trains since 1982 early this year. Was better than I thought it would be. So i have a renewed opinon of the idea. Good luck with your planning.

Generally speaking if you are looking at trains 6 months in the future and not finding what you expect that the answer is usually the data is not loaded yet. Trains are mass transit. They would be useless if they sold out months in advance.
Europeans do not book half a year ahead, and the system is there for the locals first.

For train newbies: My impression is that a lot of the problems persons not familiar with European trains are due to them being to impatient. Trying to book to far ahead. That leads to all kinds of weird situation.

So if you are looking at reserving a night train in September and cannot do so then bookings have not been opened yet. The booking horizon that you often see suggested is just that, a suggestion. it is not a hard deadline, and railways all do things their own way...

My tip: When using the trip planner just look at today, 2 weeks from now, 2 months from now compare. That may give you an idea of what is available, and wether advance bookings are advantageous.

But with an Eurail pass things become even easier. Just stop worrying. For day time trains it is unusual for them being completely booked out even on the day itself. And even a train with all the seats booked you can still board, as you only need a ticket, not a reservation. Worst case you stand till someone gets off. For short trips people still just buy a ticket just before travel (nowadays mostly on their phones). For longer trips people book maybe a couple of weeks in advance.

The only exception is the night train, where it does indeed happen that all beds end up booked by the time the train operates.
But I had a look at Budapest to Munich, and did a dummy booking for 2 adults with Eurail Pass and still found everything was available. Easiest is to book through the Austrian Railways (www.oebb.at). Where you add passengers you can indicate that they have the Eurail Pass under the reduction cards.

Note that the 7PM rule has been abolished. You now need to have your pass active for the day the train leaves. You do not need to have it active on your arrival day, unless you plan on continuing on other trains.

What you need to do on the Nightjet website is to choose the number of passengers then click on the discounts button, scroll down to International, and then choose International - Eurail Globalpass. And there are berths and seats available for me, as for @Wengen.
On MAV start (Hungarian Railways) it is very similar, under passengers, choose discounts then International Eurail. You will then for that train click on Seats and you will be offered the range of seats, couchettes or sleeper cabins. Then a choice of refundable or not.
It is working for me on MAV, and for this Sunday, for all three types of train cars.

On both you are then just paying the supplement. If my Hungarian is up to scratch MAV are open for bookings currently until 27 July.

I am unsure why we are having a different booking experience.

MAV is the company operating the sleeping cars on these trains, so they manage the bookings, and only when they know which cars will be diagrammed to they load the seat inventory.

The OBB site is however probably a bit easier to use.