Making reservations with a railpass

In Germany, except for the rare ICE Sprinter, reservations are never required, and you can probably make them at the station on the day of travel - certainly a few days before travel. You can also make them for trains running entirely within Germany on the German Rail (Bahn) website. For Austria, you can make seat reservations online with the Austrian Rail website, www.oebb.at. In the Netherlands, Thalys' trains require what they call reservations, but are in actuality a surcharge for a premium train. These "reservations" for railpass holders can be limited in number and sold out in advance, even when tickets are available at full price. Thalys has a website. I don't know if just reservations are available on their website. In France, the TGV is also a train with limited pass holder reservations. For night trains, reservations can and do sell out, sometimes a month or more in advance. Make those as soon as you can commit. Even if pass holder reservations are sold out in advance, you can always ride regional trains, which do not require reservations.

If you haven't already purchased your rail pass, caveat emptor. They rarely save travelers any money these days, and usually end up costing quite a bit more than point-to-point tickets.

If you are debating or going to take this likely foolish decision to purchase a pass, your queries are surely answered by the terms and conditions of use.

Why is a railpass a bad idea?

Richard, many travelers purchase a railpass for several reasons. 1) they think it saves money overall. It normally doesn't). 2) They think its more convenient that working with all of those train websites. Possibly but in those countries where you have to pay supplemental charges for seat reservations, the convenience begins to go away. Sometimes, you end up in the station buying your reservations just like we buy our point-to-point tickets. 3) You think that you can hop onto most any train. Not always true. Germany, Austria and Switzerland are pretty good about letting pass holders ride most of their trains but not France or Italy. You can ride their Regional trains but to ride their better and faster trains, you will need to pay a supplemental fee. For Italy, it's 10Euro supplemental fee for each high-speed you will be on. The new Italo and Thello high-speed trains in Italy won't even accept your pass. In Switzerland, you only get a 25% discount in many parts of the Berner Oberland. 4) I don't have to lock in my travel dates and times. I can just show up and take the train I want. Mostly true. Note, however, that some systems limit seats to passholders but its generally not serious problem. 5) It doesn't require as much travel planning for the train systems. Mostly true. Overall, you usually will pay the highest price per train ride compared to a traveler that carefully researches the fares and buys tickets early at the special fare price. I would suggest being cautious about using your pass on the Thalys train if you will be traveling between Amsterdam and Paris. They possibly have the highest supplemental fee to ride their trains - 39Euro for 2nd class.

I am taking a trip in August and that is basically my exact itinerary, minus Italy and plus Copenhagen. I agonized long and hard about whether to get a railpass or point to point tickets. I ended up going with point to point tickets and I'm estimating about $500-$600 for tickets- this is including several night trains, which require reservations on top of the railpass anyway. You'll probably come out about even with a railpass vs. point to point tickets. As far as reservations, few are needed unless you are traveling the ICE trains in Germany or the Thalys in France, not sure about Italy. (Someone else might want to confirm that) Use www.bahn.com to make reservations for Germany.

'Why is a railpass a bad idea?' The days when I would make the effort as Larry has are long gone. I give you this - http://tiny.cc/d40tgw
or this - http://tiny.cc/a00tgw Good luck.

@Lisa: not only Thalys requires reservations in France. They are required by all TGVs and some other trains as well. In Italy, everything but Regionale and Interregionale trains DO REQUIRE a reservation.