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Limited Pass seating on trains?

On some other travel forums I have been hearing that some rail routes are severly limiting Pass seats, much like airlines with mileage users. Does anyone have any experience with that or is it a matter or proper planning?

Posted by
6898 posts

I have seen postings that indicate that you should expect to see limited seating for Eurail pass holders but I've never seen a posting where it actually occured. More often, in most countries, a railpass is more expensive than P2P. This is especially true in Italy.

Posted by
521 posts

Hi John,

The only one that I know of where this might be an issue is the Eurostar between Paris, London, and Brussels, as they only offer a discounted fare to pass holders instead of the travel being included. It is possible that they limit the number of seats.

Otherwise, I have never had an issue with that anywhere. Are you planning on taking any specialty trains like tourist trains, or will it just be regular routes? If you will be taking regular routes, there is no concern at all.

By the way, I agree with Larry about the pass being more expensive in Italy than P2P tickets, but whether or not it is worth it in the other countries depends on the length of trips that you will be taking, and the amount of travel that you will do in a single day.

Posted by
521 posts

As an update, I found on the Eurail website that where reservations are compulsory for a train, there may be a limited number of seats available for pass holders. Although this has never been a problem for me, take a look at the list on the link above, which will show where it is possible.

I was travelling during the busy summer months, and I never had a problem. I am sure they just make that a restriction to ensure that they can refuse to sell some reservations if they have an unusually large number of pass holders travelling at once. Again, I have not yet seen that.

Posted by
9099 posts

Thalys, TGV, and Eurostar are the big culprits. They do have limits on the number of pass holders they accept on each train. But since there is at least one train every hour to most destinations, you should be able to travel on the day you want, but you're going to have to be flexible with your departure time.

Posted by
8 posts

Interesting. I looked at the Eurail website and it seems that there are a lot of different fees that pop up from country to country. Maybe they are like the airlines. We will be traveling in the low season (next winter) so will make reservaions in advance where possible and not worry too much.

Posted by
521 posts

I would recommend that you stick with the rule that you should only get a reservation if the train requires reservations. Remember too that you will pay less if you wait until you are in Europe to make that reservation rather than booking it through the Rail Europe website. If you are taking any night trains or a Eurostar, then certainly those should be reserved in advance. Otherwise, I would not bother unless you were travelling during a busy holiday or on a special scenic train.

Here is Rick Steve's list of trains reservations. Note that if it says "Reservations NOT required" (such as for the German ICE) then don't bother wasting your money on a reservation.

Posted by
9099 posts

I don't think getting a reservation on an ICE train is "wasting your money". I've been on quite a few of these trains that have been standing room. The reservations only cost a few euros and are good insurance against an uncomfortable journey.

Posted by
289 posts

I just got back from a 3 week trip including Italy, Budapest, Prague and Switzerland. We all had a Eurail pass and where required and recommended on the trains we knew we'd be taking I purchased the reservations in advance. I'm so glad I did and it was well worth it. On several of the trains there was very limited seating. On the day we left Switzerland we had to take 2 trains - think they were both Eurocity trains - one from Interlaken to Bern and then Bern to the airport. Both of those trains were so packed and we had to kick people out of our reserved seats both times. There were 4 of us traveling together so it just made it easier.

Posted by
28 posts

I also noticed that indication - limited reservations seats for pass holders - when I was looking on the Trenitalia website for routes between Rome-Venice. But it seemed that that indication was only for the 'popular' time of day trains...

Posted by
30 posts

The night trains are the ones that will limit pass seats. As for reservations, we made reservations on a train from Milan to Innsbruck (required) with zero problems, and from Barcelona to Valencia with zero problems. All we did was get our reservations first thing when we arrived in the city we'd be leaving a couple days later (actually I didn't realize we were taking the Euromed to Valencia so we had to make last minute reservations in Barcelona about three hours before the train left - but we still got them even though the train ended up being completely full!). If you take care of the reservation as soon as you arrive you shouldn't have any problems at all (including night trains; we took one from Berlin to Paris and one from Paris to Barcelona, and while all the cheaper seats were full on the Paris-Barcelona train, we still got seats on the train we'd planned on).

Posted by
80 posts

They are limiting seats on TGV trains in France.

I was unable to secure a reservation a TGV train from Paris to Mannheim, Germany. I had to purchase a full fare ticket at the station.

I tried to reserve in advance from Spain, but the RENFE computer system is so antiquated compared to the rest of Europe, it couldn't do it.

Posted by
19052 posts

Several years ago, during a discussion of exactly this issue, there were reports of railpass holders being stranded in Brussels because the number of passhold reservations was limited on Thalys. In this case regular full fare tickets were available, but passholder reservations were not. Some people were getting reservations, not for the day they wanted to travel, but sometimes for several days later.

Posted by
4555 posts

Actually, the RENFE computer reservation system is now among the most advanced among rail lines in Europe...one of the few where every ticket can be printed at home, or picked up at an automatic kiosk (and they take American credit cards!) It may not be set up to take reservations only (few rail websites are these days), but that's because those are such a minute proportion of their business, it's not worth the hassle setting it up. It's certainly not because the system is antiquated.

Posted by
55 posts

I've travelled by interrail (the version for EU citizens) a few times. There have been situations where trains were fully booked (Warsaw-Berlin, Paris-Niort, Zurich-Hanover). In these cases I still jumped on the train. Most often, the conductor will sell you a supplement on board, which is equivalent to the cost of a reservation, but minus the actual reserved seat. Once or twice the conductor just didn't bother. I never had a problem.

So if you find yourself stuck because of a full train, my advice is to still jump aboard. You might end up standing for some of the way, though.

Mark