How to Master the Eurail Pass BEFORE You Get to Europe

It’s been a while since one of these posts! Since writing at my windowside desk at Red Horse Mountain Ranch, I’ve spent three jam packed months travelling through twenty countries of wider Europe – a lot of them by train using the Eurail Pass. Some of these travels made it onto here, however a lot will be reformatted into helpful information that I learnt along the way – like this post.

I remember standing on my first train platform in Munich, two and a half months of travel and a ten day Eurail pass ahead of me and feeling absolutely, positively terrified. Feeling unqualified was an understatement. I could probably count on one hand the amount of trains I’ve been on in my life, and now I was supposed to tour Europe alone on them!

Well, now that I have the benefit of hindsight, I’m here to tell you how. Though the idea is pretty simple, there are a few things to watch out for that quickly compound into bigger problems if you’re not careful.

Choosing Your Pass

Because I was travelling so many countries in a short amount of time, I opted for the Eurail 10-Day/2 Months pass (Interrail for EU citizens). This meant that I was able to use unlimited number of trains on ten separate travel days – provided they were all within two months of the starting date.

There are a selection of different passes you can choose from, between one country, multiple days; to multiple countries, multiple days. They all have different prices, which you can align with your budget how you like.

Alternatively, you can get point to point tickets, which will give you a more consistent, solid schedule. This is perfect if you’re doing a shorter trip with less destinations. I did a cost analysis of which is better, and they turned out essentially even. The perk of Eurail is that it condenses all your tickets and booking into one place. It’s down to preference.

It is absolutely worth having the Eurail app. This is where all of your bookings, seat reservations (remember, they’re different), GENERAL timetables live. It’s also where you can load QR codes for your journeys that you can then show the conductors.

How Do I Use My Eurail Pass?

Now, you can’t just get on any train and show the conductor you have a Eurail pass. Well, you can, but there’s a few extra steps first. Once you have purchased your pass, you need to load it into the app itself.

Searching Your Journey

Once you have entered the codes you were emailed and logged in to your pass, you will be directed to a screen like the image below on the left. This is where you can search and SAVE your train journeys. This includes your start and end destination, as well as the departure and arrival times.

SAVING THIS JOURNEY DOES NOT GUARANTEE YOU A SEAT. It’s not like an airplane or a bus ticket. It’s simply a guide to when the trains come and go.

Saving A Journey

Once you have saved these journeys, you can then click the ‘My Trip’ tab. This is where you can activate them into a travel day (you will have a limited amount of these, depending on which pass you bought e.g. I had ten travel days, with my ten day pass). There is no limit to how many journeys you can save into this screen though.

The time matters, but it also doesn’t. You need to make sure you have activated the right one onto your pass, though it is very easy to change the time if you miss a train.

For example, if I’m travelling from Amsterdam to London, and I want to leave at 9:00AM, I will save and ACTIVATE the journey for 9AM. But I will also save the train leaving at 10:30AM, just in case I miss that train. If I do, I can simply switch which journey is attached to my pass.

Activating A Journey and Turning it into a Ticket

In the image below on the right, there are switches that turn yellow when they are activated as a travel day. If you simply save a journey and do not activate it, it will not load to your QR code or your pass, and you will not be able to travel.

When you have activated your journey, you can access your ‘ticket’ via the My Pass tab. From here you can click on your travel day (as below on the left) and it will give you an option to view the ticket (as below on the right). You can also edit the journey if you need to change the day or time.

BEWARE: If you have to change a journey, make sure to do so before 12AM on the day BEFORE you travel. If you do not need to use a travel day and you fail to change the date, it will activate the day you originally and you will waste a day. It’s as simple as flicking that yellow switch, so don’t forget to do that if plans change.

TIP #1 – Walk to the End of the Platform

The Eurail Pass enables you to get on any train you like that turns up from your chosen start point to end destination. It means everyone else can too. If you don’t have a reservation, (most of the time in the east of Europe in off-peak times, you won’t need one) then you are wrestling everyone for a spare seat.

Trust me, people are lazy. They spill out of the walkways and mill about right in front of the entrance, upset when a mob of people thinking the same thing try to get on the train first. Most of the time, the station will announce which platform, and which part of the platform the train will be arriving at.

E.g. Prague 12A-C. Platform 12. Front end of the train at A, back at C.

Try and aim for either the front or back, however keep in mind that without a first class pass, it is a gamble of which end these carriages are at (you won’t be able to sit in these as a second-class pass holder). You can often find the other reserved seats close to the first class carriages.

TIP #2 – If Eurail Recommends You Reserve a Seat, Don’t.

I say this with caution. Don’t is relative. When booking seat reservations WHICH ARE DIFFERENT TO YOUR PASS (essentially you bought the ticket, now you have to pay for your particular seat), sometimes Eurail will indicate one of three options.

1. Seat Reservations Optional – Translation: We want 8 extra euros for no reason
2. Seat Reservations Recommended – Translation: The train may be empty, the train may be busy, be prepared to fight for your seat, or enjoy a carriage to yourself.
3. Seat Reservations Required – Translation: Yeah, no getting past these extra fees.

Don’t bother with reservations if it says Seat Reservations Optional. If you want peace of mind, absolutely g for it, however I found that all o my trains with this indication were essentially empty.

Seat Reservations Recommended is another story. It was a real mixed bag of whether it was worth it or not. I found that if I arrived on time, and positioned myself in the right place on the platform (tip #1), I could get away with not paying extra.

Seat Reservations Required are self explanatory. Even though you have to pay extra, having a Eurail pass can save you hundreds of dollars on these trains, as they are generally a lot more expensive to buy point to point tickets for.

For example I paid a $7.00 NZD reservation fee with my Eurail pass for one of my trains from regional Norway to Oslo, when it would have cost me $166.00 NZD as a separate ticket!

Depending on the train, you may also need to show proof of the seat reservation which will be emailed to you separately from your ticket on the Eurail app.

TIP #3 – Book Longer Layover Times Over Short Ones

Somehow, I managed to avoid the mistake of booking a short layover time on my train from Zurich, Switzerland, to London in England. The Eurail booking system had given me two options. A 40 minute layover in Paris, or a 2 hour one. I’d picked up that it required a train station switch, from Paris Gare de Lyon, to Gare de Nord. I’d had enough experience with the public transport around Europe to know that 40 minutes would be pushing it. I was right. It ended up taking me an hour to get from one station to another (though someone who speaks French and is familiar with the Metro system possibly would have had it better than I did).

It’s good to keep in mind that though Eurail offers these options, they don’t always account for crowds, delays, public transport times and other variables.

TIP #4 – Eurail Seat Reservations Are Best Made on Laptop

I say this, because there were a few instances I had to do last minute bookings, and trains that were unavailable or sold out on the Eurail app, WERE AVAILABLE ON MY LAPTOP!

If you’re booking months in advance, you may not have to worry about this, but if you’re like me and only have half booked by the time you arrive, this can definitely come in handy.

This leads into tip #5…

TIP #5 – Beware: The Eurail App is Only Updated Weekly!

Picture me, dazed and confused looking desperately up at the board in Budapest, panicking because my train had been reverted to Vienna and CANCELLED, all while my app still said I’d be in Innsbruck by nightfall. Indeed, the local train timetables were the only apps that are updated, NOT Eurail. Luckily I was able to rebook another two trains through Salzburg to Innsbruck, but it is so important not to rely on the Eurail timetable for information.

Generally your ticket will tell you which train line you will be travelling with, and you can check the timetables from there.

Alternatively you can…

TIP #6 – Don’t Treat The Station Like an Airport

There is a sweet spot with arriving to the train station. I found twenty minutes to be the perfect amount of time. By this stage, your train will be on that screen that 500 other people are standing around, and generally you will have the platform number by now too (that’s your cue to start running to the end of the platform hunny). If you turn up three hours early like at an airport, you will indeed by waiting for three hours.

On the flip side, I have had trains where the platform is announced only minutes before the train is set to be LEAVING. I tall depends on which country you are travelling and their standards for arrival times. Always err on the side of early though, ESPECIALLY if you plan on roughing it out for seats.

The only exception to this is for any trains going in and out of England. You will need to do a security and border check, so you need to be early for this.

As much of an information dump this is, I really hope it comes in handy for someone, so that you don’t end up nervous standing on that first platform like I was!

Happy travels!

• Facebook
• Pinterest
• X
• ShareCopied to clipboard

Got some more time to read?