How to use Eurail pass in advance?
 

I'll be taking a night train from Paris to Wurzburg this May, and would like to book ahead so I can get a 2-person sleeper. I have no trouble finding trains on bahn.de but I see nowhere to enter in a Eurail pass number.

How can I make reservations online with the Eurail pass?

I think this may only be possible thru the bahn.de site for trains within Germany. Folks have told me they could do it - make reservations with a pass - but i haven't investigate the site to see how.

But a train from France may not be possible unline from European sites.

If in Paris some days beforehand you should not have any problem getting the T-2 i believe unless it's some busy holiday weekend, football match, etc. Even then much more expensive T-2s should be available as the 'rabble' usually goes the couchette route.

You can investigate making the T-2 booking when you buy your pass if you're worried about doing it in Paris but you would probably pay a bit more here. (reservations can be made only 2 months in advance in US and probably Europe and maybe that is the problem.) As usual i always recommend BETS (800-441-2387; budgeteuropetravel.com for their pass and reservations expertise. Perhpas or hopefully it is possible online - if so i also would love to learn how to do it.

I don't think you will find a direct night train connection from Paris to Würzburg. I think your best bet is to take the night train from Paris (22:45) to Munich as far at Stuttgart (6:11) and take a regional train (7:05 to 9:22) from there. The good news is that since you are counting the 2nd day of your trip on the rail pass (7 PM rule), the train from Stuttgart to Würzburg is included.

You can purchase the accommodation supplement (sometimes called a "reservation") from the German Nachtzugreise (Night Train Travel) website (http://buchung.nachtzugreise.de). The website will display in English.

Be sure to check "Accommodation surcharge only, ticket exists" under "What is required".

I don't think you have to enter the pass number when you purchase the reservation, just present the pass with the reservation when you are on the train. However, if the do ask for it on the website, then enter it.

On this website you can pay by credit card, and they will send you a pdf file from which you can print your own ticket.

Larry thanks a lot for that news. Now i know how it's done. I'm copying that for future reference.

Nachtzugreise is definitely a good resource to know about.

Too many people order rail passes naively assuming they will have no problem getting reservations for night trains. That is often not the case, or the price will be very high. Reservations for most night trains can be obtained from RailEurope, but at a price often much higher than the price in Europe, and with a much reduced selection. Also, RailEurope does not sell reservations on all night trains, most notably not those from Munich to Italy (Venice, Florence, Rome). In most cases a better option is to buy them from Euraide. Euraide buys the reservations in Munich at the same price you would pay over there, and charges a once per order fee of about $45 for the service and to ship them over here.

Nachtzugreise (www.nachtzugreise.de) is a cooperative effort of four of the night train lines (EuroNight, D-Nacht, DB Nachtzug, & UlaubsExpress) that are partially owned by German Rail. The ticket prices are what you would pay over there. You can book most EuroNight (those with one terminus in Germany), DB Nachtzug, and Urlaubs Express trains from the website. D-Nacht and some trains of the other lines have to be order using a phone number in Germany. I understand that someone there will speak English.

CityNightLine (www.citynightline.ch) is a Swiss chartered, wholly owned subsiderary of DB. They run modern night trains from Amsterdam, Kopenhagen, and various German cities to Zurich, from Amsterdam to Munich, and from Germany to Vienna and Prague. You can book these trains on their website.

Besides being one of the few, and the least expensive, places to get reservations, these websites also sell complete tickets (rail and accommodations) for night trains at the full, refundable, exchangeable, price as well as a limited quantity of nonrefundable SparNight tickets at a greatly reduced price. Usually, a SparNight ticket will be less than the cost of a day of a rail pass plus the reservation. People need to compare the price of SparNight tickets to the cost of a rail pass and reservations BEFORE committing to a rail pass.

Again Larry - thanks for the wealth of info.

Re Raileurope and Germany/austria to Italy night trains.

They periodically do and do not sell these tickets. Not sure currently but they at times do so thru their DER (former German Rail Eurail subsidiary bought by RailEurope) and order them from Germany. At other times they don't so it's hard to tell.

But RE has usually sold night train accommodations for folks with passes, just not always point-point night train fares for some reason.

Not sure of current status but believe your sites mentioned are no doubt the best place to get such reservations.

As a note - the above applies only to Germany and i think in most countries, and Italy and France in particular you can't make such reservations online and must go to the ticket window or in advance go thru RailEurope, BETS, etc.

As many trains now require reservations the previous selling point of a railpass, just hop on is being negated as you often have to go to the ticket window to make a reservation with a railpass.

If anyone knows how to do it on French rail and Trenitalia sites please advise, or in station machines!

I would also be interested in the Madrid to Paris reservations. I haven't been able to find anything. When I called Renfe, I was put on hold for so long that I just gave up.

try www.voyages-sncf.com - French rail who operates this route in conjunction with RENFE. RailEurope, BETS, etc. have some advance cheaper tickets on this route so check with them too though usually they are signficantly higher i believe for this train. But always check. the only direct train is the overnight Elipsos hotel train i believe.

Thanks, I'll check it out.

I forgot about this message and just checked it again today.

We were planning on taking Paris-Est to Frankfurt and then down to Wurzburg from there. I checked the site you gave, and all they show is seats or a T-6.

I plugged in Stuttgart instead and got more choices, but E158 for just accomodations for two adults? Sure it's slightly cheaper than a hotel, but wow! That's a lot more than I expected. Is this a normal fee? I always read that the reservation fees for seats would only be a few euro extra and this site shows them at E12.

There could be more than one type of double and the other doesn't show - some of these trains may have douche/toilet in compartment and cost much more than an ordinary T-2. But don't know.

I have booked my train through nachtzugreise (night train trip, ahh I love German :P).

It ended up being E80 for the both of us. The more expensive fee that I originally saw was for the "deluxe" sleeper car.

Thanks to everyone who responded! This forum has been the source of much information for my trip.

Spiv - how do you get your reservation ticket - in Germany or do they send it to you? thanx

Thanks PalenQ and Larryincolorado for the information on night train reservations.

That https://buchung.nachtzugreise.de site is great. It displays in English when you click the Union Jack.

PQ - They emailed me a pdf of it. I just printed it out and showed it to the conductor on the train. No problems at all.

Spiv - thanks sounds easy and the way to go. Larry has helped lots of folks money - maybe he should get a cut?