I am new to train travel in Europe. I will have a select pass and so I need to make seat ressies for certain legs of my train travel. I have looked up some on eurail.com and the cost is $14 for both 1st and 2nd class. That seems really high for a 1.2 hour train ride. I wonder if I am doing something wrong or are the fees really that high now. I am traveling in Italy, Austria, Switz and then on to Paris. Thanks for your help.
Posted by
The Hague, NL (AMS)
2207 posts
Speaking for Italy - as that's where I travel most - yes, it's currently €10 for a seat reservation on the high speed trains. Of course there is NO seat reservation charge on the slow, Regionale trains. So you would have to pay 10€ for each leg per person on the faster, newer trains. That's probably why many folks don't purchase Eurail passes for Italy.
Posted by
Lakewood, Colorado
19274 posts
When "reservations" are only for an assigned seat and are optional, they are usually a nominal administrative fee, eg €4 in Germany. Higher "reservation" fees for pass holders are when the country has decided that the pass only partially covers what they consider a premium train and passholders must pay an additional surcharge to ride it. All seats on the train are reserved. A seat reservation is included with the cost of a standard ticket or with the cost of the surcharge. Slower regional trains don't have reserved seats or surcharges. If all you are doing that day is a 1.2 hr trip you might find it cheaper to buy a "standard" ticket (in which the reservation is included) and save the rail pass for another day. If this is Italy, you can find the price for a standard ticket on trenitalia.com.
Posted by
Kansas
1175 posts
Check out www.seat61.com for many tips on how and where to travel by train in the most economical and fastest way across Europe.
Posted by
Stuttgart, Germany
3050 posts
If you haven't already bought your pass yet and you will be doing travel in Italy and France I would hold off. I do love railpasses but they are not economical or convenient within France, speaking from personal experience. I could have saved significant money buying point to point tickets in advance. Between mandatory seat reservations (and only a small number of seats set aside for pass users) and the fact that you have to pay a fee for international trains coming in to or out of France with a pass, it's just usually not even close to worth it. However, it still might make sense for you to get a pass for Germany/Austria/Switzerland. The best thing to do is use bahn.com and other websites to "crunch the numbers" of how much it would all cost as point-to-point tickets, then compare that versus a pass. For travel within France, follow the instructions at seat61.com, they're excellent. Also, check out the iDTGV trains for excellent prices along major routes in France as low as 19 euro per person per "leg" (as in Marsielle to Paris, or Paris to Strasbourg).
Posted by
Seattle, WA
17441 posts
Sarah makes an excellent point. If you haven't bought you pass yet, re-consider. Often the only useful and cost-effective one is in Switzerland, where ar pier Swiss pass works much better than a multi-country pass. And you don't need reservations to use a pass on Swiss trains. But even there, a pass is only useful if you are spending some time, not just passing through. The Swiss pass will give you much better discounts on mountains lifts and trains such as the Jungfraujoch, if you are thinking of that. And you can get a discount ticket from Switzerland to Paris by buying in advance.