We have travelled by Eurail many times, but when trying to reserve first class seats for our trip from Budapest to Zurich in August, we can't reserve a seat. It says "seat reservation recommended" but then the link doesn't work; it seems there are no more seat reservations available for this leg of our trip. We had no problems with other legs. What happens if we show up and don't get a seat? do we stand up the whole way? Are we prevented from boarding? Second class also has no seat reservations available. Should we cancel the Eurail pass and just book and pay for each leg separately? It's a busy time for travel so I'm nervous about trying to get seats when we get to the train station.
Posted by
Wyckoff, NJ, USA
7886 posts
What website are you using? There are many ways to buy .... is it in fact, a Eurailpass? Which type/country? Are you able to return the pass without any net expense?
Have you experimented with either the Hungarian or Deutsche Bahn website to see what kinds of seats are available for walk-up retail purchase? It just gives you more information, also a list of prices for all the trips that day, so that you can start to collect the data that answers your own question. And also how many changes of train there may be for the journey. It's also useful to know (each country could be different) if there is a posted rule for that train like "Seat Reservation Mandatory."
Posted by
California
325 posts
Perhaps try other booking sites to see if you can access reservations? The guidance at the following link has helpful info including booking and reservations (and when they open up) for the route you reference https://www.seat61.com/international-trains/trains-from-Budapest.htm#Budapest-Switzerland.
[The Man in] Seat 61 is the best place to go when you need train info/booking guidance, I rely on it heavily, best guidance available IMO. An opinion shared by many on this forum.
Last year when I was booking seat reservations for various trains around Europe I ended up using multiple sites (with direct links found on Seat61.com). Mostly because the cost was less to book with a given country's website (example Berlin to Prague via the DB website was almost double what I paid using the Czech website @ 3 euro for a 1st class seat reservation).
Posted by
San Francisco
14980 posts
That Budapest to Zurich route is done by the MAV, expect it to be crowded. Get the seat reservation when you're in BP. As far as I know (ie, I'm not sure), you will be allowed to board without a seat reservation, if no seats are available, you stand. Ask in BP. Most likely, there will be numerous others doing likewise, until a seat opens up near where one is standing. You may have a better chance as you are going 1st class but I have seen too that in 1st class all seats are taken too.
It may well be that no more seats are available for the date and departure you want. That happened to me last summer on that route for the date I wanted, did not, however, inquire about the following. This was the Zurich - Budapest night train...was told totally booked up. ("complet ausgebucht"). My destination was Vienna, not the terminus, Budapest.
Posted by
Wengen
2495 posts
August is ages away. If you are trying to get seats for a train more than a trivial amount of time in the future, and not finding seats than the reason is that the seat inventory for that train has not yet been loaded. Because the websites have been programmed by people who cannot even imagine that you would want to reserve a seat for an August train already in May the error messages you get in these scenarios are not very enlightening...
Trains do not sell out months in advance. They would be useless if they did. And anyway, a reservation is not compulsory for that train, even though it is indeed recommended. You could always get on at a station once you are in Europe. If you are really the type of person that suffers a lot from seat anxiety the Eurail Pass is maybe not for you...
Now what would happen if you turned up for that train without reservations. Several things...
- Since you are boarding that train at the start you could just go to the station 10 minutes earlier, and quite probably you would be able to find a few non reserved seats that are not occupied.
- Failing that you might have to stand till the next station. There are always people getting off at each station.
It is unlikely you would stand the whole trip.
As to what is probably really happening:
- This train is operated by MAV in Hungary, ÖBB in Austria, and SBB in Switzerland, but it is ÖBB that provides the train set. ÖBB is receiving a lot of new trains at the moment, and as new trains enter service, older trains are retired, and there is a big reshuffle of rolling stock. As a result reservations are not possible for a lot of summer trains, as they do not know yet what train set they are going to diagram on those services. I guess the RJ from Budapest to Zurich is one of those.
Posted by
Magyarország / Rep of Texas
20204 posts
Go to the MAV site and try and book it.
Which I did and failed. Wait about 2 weeks and try again on MAV. Worst case is you go down to Keleti and book the seat.