Seat Reservation- German Rail Pass holder

I confess I don't know of all the weird little rules regarding rail passes, but if you're not traveling on a rail pass, reservations are not necessary on ICEs. However, they are helpful. Not because the train will sell out, but because I find it easier to go directly to my reserved seat rather than fumbling around looking for an open one. And if you haven't already bought a RailEurope pass... don't. I'll let Lee, Russ or Tim explain why.

Reserving a seat on German ICE trains is usually helpful even if not compulsory because they give you peace of mind for the whole trip, especially if you have luggage. Imagine you seat somewhere (instead of looking into the digital display), then next station somebody appears with a reserved seat, so you gotta move. Then half-an-hour later the seat you moved to is reserved as well, so you gotta move. When travelling with family, it is a good investment to just pay for reservation.

The 18:13 train is a non-stop ICE Sprinter which is one hour faster than regular ICE trains which make several stops between Frankfurt and Berlin. Seat reservations are compulsory only on ICE Sprinters. If you book well in advance (up to 92 days allowed) on the German Rail site, you can get a Sparpreis fare as low as €29.00 for regular ICEs and €40.50 for the Sprinter. If you already have a railpass and want to buy a seat reservation, do it on the German Rail site. It will cost you €4.50 for an ICE train or €11.50 for the Sprinter.

Thanks Tom, Andre and Tim! You guys are super helpful! Unfortunately, I've already bought a German Rail Pass with RailEurope. What's wrong with that company? I got a twin pass for $365 for 6 days. It was a special deal that comes with a free city tour in Berlin as well. I will listen to Andre's advice to reserve in order to avoid being kicked out of our seats. I'm super grateful for Tim's advice to reserve it through Bahn instead of through RailEurope, which charges CAD$12 per reserved seat. Thank you for all your helpful advice!! Cheers,
CL

For rail passes there's nothing "wrong" with RailEurope. It looks like you got a special deal for a 6-day twin at $365. The price shown right now is $462 for that same pass. Rick's prices normally are the same or very close to the RailEurope price, which is, I believe, from where he gets his passes. However, Rick offers some bonuses (like a discount in his Travel Store) you won't get from RailEurope. What is wrong with RailEurope is their pricing for the point to point tickets they also sell. For most countries, Germany in particular, they charge significantly more for standard priced point to point tickets than the price you can get at the counter over there or online through the Bahn, and the Bahn offers discounted tickets (e.g., Sparpreis) for far less than the standard tickets sold by RailEurope. And, as you pointed out, they charge you $12 for a $6 (€4,50) reservation. Do they really say you must buy a reservation from them? In Germany, you can usually buy a reservation at the ticket counter right up to train time.

The €40,50 Sparpreis mentioned by Tim for the ICE Sprinter includes the mandatory reservation, but the €29 for the regular ICE does not include a reservation. However, the Bahn gives you the option when purchasing a ticket online to buy a reservation for €2,50 (about half price).

Maybe the limit information from RailEurope on passholder reservations was general information, for any country. Some Rail lines - Thalys, I know, TGV, also, I think, maybe Italian Eurostar do limit reservation for pass holders. German Rail does not. As long as there are any, anyone can purchase a reservation, regardless of ticket type. I don't ride a lot of express trains (ICE, IC, and EC) in Germany because I limit my travel to a smaller area that can easily be traversed with regional trains using inexpensive Länder tickets. However, I sometimes do use express trains, and mostly do not get reservations. One time that bit me because I was riding an ICE from Frankfurt Flughafen to Karlsruhe on Dec 26, a mayor holiday in Germany. Every seat in the coaches I tried were taken, but I noticed that not many of the reserved lights were on. At the first stop, Mannheim, a lot of people got up to get off and we got seats. The next time I rode that train, in March, I almost reserved a seat in FRA when I bought the ticket. I didn't, and I was glad. I was one of six people in the entire coach. In 2008, I bought Sparpreis tickets from Cochem to Hannover (2 trains) and from Göttingen to Karlsruhe. I bought the reservation because they were only €2,50 per direction. I didn't need them. The Bahn was having trouble with ICE wheels at the time and substituting old, smaller coaches. My reserved seats didn't exist, but it didn't matter; there were plenty of unreserved seat on every train. Anyway, only buy reserved seats for the first German train, online from the Bahn, before you go over. When you find out how many seats are available, you probably won't do that again. If you decide you need to, you can always buy them at the station before you get on.

I find on this board it's "common knowledge" that train seat reservations aren't necessary. And if you're feeling kinda plucky/savvy and traveling on your own (or with someone else who is also not easily stressed) I agree. But based on the advice on this board I didn't make seat reservations for trips with my mom and my grandmother and I really regretted it. They wanted us to all sit together. They were very anxious about not having seat reservations. And sure enough, some of the trains we were on were in fact, packed. We had to sit apart on most trains, often several cars away, usually with me finding a seat that was "temporarily available" but was booked at a later stop, meaning I spent a lot of time moving around the train looking for open seats. It was way more stressful than I'd anticipated because on previous family trips I'd gone ahead and reserved seats for everyone. I think for solo travelers it's usually fine to not reserve but would absolutely not recommend it for groups. Solo travel is not like traveling with 3 or 4 people. Seat reservations are really quite inexpensive particularly given the amount of money people spend on European vacations. Unless you're on a backpacker budget, I suggest getting them.