Hello - My wife and daughter are headed to Europe in 14 days and they each purchased a Eurail Pass with 10 segments. When planning trips to various cities in Europe, e.g. between Venice and Zurich, there are transfers. Do each of those transfers consume one of the segments, or do they just count as one segment deducted from the 10 segments from the travel between Venice and Zurich?
Thank you for any feedback.
What do you mean by segments? I am only familiar with Eurail passes which offer days of travel. It has been a while since I bought a Eurail pass. What is the name of their Eurail pass and how many countries are they visiting.
Segments... sounds like one of Amtrak's ridiculous creations. Eurail passes consist of a number of travel days. The number of transfers you make is irrelevant.
What is a travel day?
https://www.eurail.com/en/help/interested-in-eurailing/what-is-a-travel-day
How does a Eurailpass work?
https://www.seat61.com/how-to-use-a-eurail-pass.htm#how-does-a-eurail-pass-work
Note that with the Eurail Pass the intention is that you do not plan to much in advance. Just fly to Europe, and get any reservations you need just there at the station. Eg. For Zurich - Venice just go to the main station in Zurich. (Or any other station in Switzerland, as I hope they will be staying in a place more interesting than Zurich)
however, in France and Italy for example, all trains except for the lowest level, require an expensive mandatory reservation charge. On the other hand real tickets include that for no extra charge.
In France all TGV and IC and some TER trains require that fee.
In Italy everything that is not Regionale (R) or Regionale Veloce (RV) require that fee. Also in Italy, only Trenitalia accepts the Eurailpass. Their excellent competitor, ItaloTreno do not accept it.
Thank you everyone. I went and reviewed their 10 "segment" Eurail passes, and found it it was they are in fact for 10 days that run midnight to midnight. This was the first time anyone in our family has used Eurail passes. Thank you again for all your help.
For first timer pass users also be aware that Eurailpasses are not valid beyond Interlaken Ost going up into the Berner Oberland, and that the passholder seat reservation fee is particularly high for TGV trains crossing the national border into a surrounding country, except not Monaco.
And that in France they can sell out even though there are still seats available on the train which a normal ticket person could buy.
Using the Eurailpass to cross to or from England is quite expensive.
all trains except for the lowest level, require an expensive mandatory
reservation charge. On the other hand real tickets include that for no
extra charge.
It's called a "reservation fee", because you do get a reservation with it, but it is really a "premium train surcharge", because the rail company feels the rail pass just allows you to get from point A to point B. The surcharge is because you are riding a train that gets you there faster.
I am a first time traveler to anywhere, and first time travel by rail anywhere, basically. I am reading about Rail Passes and looking at the map in Rick's Best of France. Places I am going are not connected by TGV. So each day of travel will not be on a TGV. So, the Global Pass I am planning to buy is a Global Pass for 8 days. Will I be required to pay the additional reservation fee, even for 2nd class?
A global rail pass is likely a waste of money. Read the Man in Seat 61 website for the best information. Keep in mind, the French people on your train just buy tickets and have no idea what a Eurail pass even is.
True, but keep in mind that French people as well as other Europeans have the benefit of special discounts not afforded to none
EU tourist.
we do? tell me more.... I'd like to find some for myself
Some countries offer residents 25-50% discounts purchased in monthly or annual subscriptions with a local bank number. When we were in the Netherlands 5 years ago we were able to use this generous discount for train travel on ns.NL. This week we are paying full fares. I’m thankful for the new tapping of cc for transportation within the Netherlands but I miss the discount we were able to get with a bank # five years ago.
We just came from a 2+ week stay in Austria where a friend of ours traveled with her discount card and we paid for full fare. Occasionally we all used a day ticket together but not for pre booked tickets when traveling outside of Vienna.
I’d mention too that we haven’t traveled with a Eurail pass in the past 20 years but our granddaughter is currently in Europe on a 7 week trip using a Eurail Global Pass with 15 days of travel. For an 18 year old with some long distances to cover, she did the math and chose this method for travel. It took a lot of work on her part to see if segments requiring reservations were necessary or desired but she figured it out. Today she is joining us in Amsterdam for a few days as she left Berlin this AM. She’s been traveling for about 3 weeks so we’ll ask her how the nitty gritty is going so far.
but those discount cards are not free.
Very true Nigel. The OV person specific card we had in NL 5 years ago wasn’t expensive and the card holder got 50% off and companion ticket(s), me, were 40% off so it quickly paid for its self in the 3 short weeks we used it that year. Other countries that charge a subscription usually require more frequent ridership before they make financial sense so are best for residents.
A pass works very well in countries that still separate tickets from reservations. In most of central Europe you can still hop on a train for example. And you can get reservations if you want relatively easy, and cheaply.
But France or Italy can be problematic.
My sister and her family were travelling in Europe. 2 Adults, 3 Children. They needed to get from Milano to Spiez, to come and visit me. Because of engineering works Trenitalia had opened the EC trains to Switzerland for booking only two weeks before they were to run. But what was worse, they had neglected to upload the seat inventory in to the European reservation system (Resarail). The result was that, while you could just buy tickets for those trains, you could not get Eurail Reservations. Not even at the ticket office in Milano. They ended up buying just a family ticket to Domodossola (from which you no longer need a reservation) which actually ended up cheaper than 5 Eurail reservations would have cost them.
Then a few days later they continued to Belgium via Germany, and we easily reserved seats for the whole family, for the two ICE trains they needed, for the grand total of 9.90....
So Eurail is good if you are planning to indeed do long stretches in central Europe. I use Interrail (the domestic variant of Eurail) quite often for business trips to Germany (and get a good chuckle from my accountant...) but I would never consider a pass for Italy or France or Spain.
