Does N/A on a Rail Europe train (when searching with a railpass) mean that there are no seats available for people with rail passes, or does it mean that there are no reservations for that train if you have a rail pass? (This is in France.)
Posted by
Minneapolis, MN, USA
8700 posts
N/A means that no reservations are possible for that train. All regional trains in France fit that category.
Posted by
Powell River, Canada
359 posts
Beg to differ with the RailEurope 'N/A' 'code'. Also means they are all 'sold out' for that catagory of compartment/seat. I procrastinated on an overnite sleeper from Paris to Venice for early May. Kept putting it off until the 'N/A' appeared on my choice of Paris/Venice compartment (a 2 berth) on the Rail Europe site and now am going Paris/Nice/Venice in order to get the 2 berth compartment. When 'no reservations possible' is the case, a totally different message will appear on the RailEurope sight offering you choices as to why REurope can't 'do the job'.
Posted by
Powell River, Canada
359 posts
To clarify my previous message, the N/A options appear when clicking the 'with RailPass' box.
Posted by
OP
Newport Beach
14 posts
Really? Because some of the smaller routes (quick, two or three stop trips) indicate that they're N/A from now until the end of time. ;) But I'm pretty sure you should still be able to ride on those with a rail pass, right?
Posted by
Powell River, Canada
359 posts
Which particular route(s) are you trying to check Michael? No doubt RailEurope's a bit spotty with some of the shorter trips (no profit, no interest) and I understand there are some routes in Europe on which a RailEurope Pass is not accepted; it's possible the one on your itinerary is among those. There are no RailEurope 'trains', RE is only a purveyor of tickets/reservations/passes, not a carrier.
Posted by
OP
Newport Beach
14 posts
For example,
Pontorson Mont St to Bayeux. These all show up as N/A.
Posted by
Powell River, Canada
359 posts
Checked some short haul trips in France (including Pontorson to Bayeux), England and Holland to see how RailEurope 'handled' the different countries' rail systems on their website. Varied a bit country to country but as Tim? suggested, on these local runs, the N/A's signify reservations not available. On longer/faster/overnite trips the N/A (as in my Paris/Venice example) means 'sold out'. I've heard that some 'routes' don't accept railpasses at all but have never tried to confirm that vicious rumour. So, looks like the N/A can mean a few things. You probably saw on the Pont/Bayeux run that of the 4 possible 'classes' of service/ticket, when you click 'no railpass', they only offer 2 classes and show N/A for the other 2; another meaning to the N/A reference.
Posted by
OP
Newport Beach
14 posts
So, I just called RailEurope's customer support and received from really hopeless advice.
He said that when you click on a train's details, if it says "Accomodation," then no reservations are available for the trains, but if it says "Accomodation: Seat," then it means you do need a reservation.
I went through and checked and it looks like EVERY train in France that I was looking at falls into the "Accomodation: Seat" category.
Conclusion: This guy probably didn't know what he was talking about, and it's time to call back and try for another person.