Train reservation

Yes....Rail Pass is automatically a 1st class ticket.............No need to get a Seat Reservation through Rail Europe......Get the seat reservation upon your arrival in Paris for your trip from Paris to Basel.......never heard of a seat reservation costing $202 with a Rail Pass........Other may clarify this for you.

Not all rail passes are 1st class. A "Eurail" pass (Global, 3 country select, etc) will be first class. A French rail pass, or some two country including France might be 1st/2nd class. What you apparently have here is a train for which all passholder reservations are sold out, and they are offering only full fare tickets at their markup over European counter prices. For an earlier Lyria train (9215 at 10:24) I see passholder reservaions available at $37 2nd class, $65 1st class for a 100% for refundable passholder reservations, $11 for a non-refundable reservation (1st or 2nd class).

A saver pass may be either first or second class. Which do you have? That will be stated on the front of the pass. Make reservations accordingly...... If you have a first class pass, I believe you are allowed to make reservations for either first or second class travel. In situations where reservations are required, a second class pass restricts you to second class cars.....A first class pass allows you to travel in either first or second class cars......For some regional trains, there is no first class available.

After looking at the RailEurope listings, the Passholder reservations are only sold out for holders of a 2nd cl. pass including only France. What you saw were the rates for reservations for various passes (Eurail selekt, France-Switzerland, etc) and refundable vs non-refundable. Click on the link "Fare rules" for each price. For instance, with a 1st cl. Eurail pass including France and Switzerland, you can get non-refundable 1st cl. reservations for $30 ($15 per person).

While some Saver passes can be either 1st or 2nd class, the France-Switzerland Saver pass is only 1st class so I assume that is what you have. Do what Lee suggests and buy two 1st class seat reservations. No reservations are possible on the Basel-Interlaken train.

Hi Thank you all for replies,
once i clicked the fare rules, it made sense, I need to use the $30 ones.

I had another question, the reservation seems to be soooooooo expensive when compared to the actual price when in Europe. Is it a wise idea to just book at the train station itself, i am travelling nov 1st week.

and what about printing reservations at kiosk? is that something that can be done easily?

Is there any cheaper way to reserve TGV trains with passes

If you will be in Paris a few days before you go to Switzerland and your Paris-Basel TGV ride is on a weekday, then you'll probably be safe waiting until you get to Paris to buy your seat reservations. Buying them at a station is your cheapest option and you'll have to do it at a ticket window. The ticket machines in French stations only accept credit cards with embedded chips.