I made seat reservations on rail europe so I wouldn't have to deal with it during my precious time in Europe. I received an email stating that my reservations were on hold for 3 days because of a price increase for one leg of our journey. I replied to the email twice, verifying that I approved the additional charges. I have yet to hear from them, and I am concerned that we won't receive these reservations before we leave. I got standard shipping which should have been plenty of time - although I can't remember how much time standard shipping ususally takes. There is no telephone number that I can find on their website.
Has anyone else have similar experiences with raileurope? Maybe I should figure how to cancel the whole order and make my reservations at the train station when I get there. I've already purchased our rail passes.

This is one reason i always recommend calling someone and talking to them when making bookings thru RE as they are notorious in this forum for doing exactly what you say. I always recommend BETS 800-441-2387 who will give personal attention and be accessible always and do a manual search with a firm booking - no waiting three days. Actually i usually tell folks to forego RE at all and do it in Europe except for a very few hard to get trains. Also you can usually go right into the online sites of French rail, Italian rail, etc. and make reservations cheaper. And i've read you can make reservations at the www.bahn.de German rail site for trains all over Europe if you have a pass.

Anyway which trains are you concerned about - can give advice on whether or not easy to make in Europe as most but not all are. (French TGV pass reservations for example can be hard to make.)

Your post raises a number of interesting questions but I won;t go into those..call this number and have your order number ready

1-877-257-2887 in the US

Thanks so much for that phone number! I just called, but it will take 24 hours for the confirmation for that leg of the trip. I need to call back tomorrow to ensure that it went through. At that time, I may cancel the whole order if need be. I did read on this site that it was not necessary to book the seats in advance and that it could indeed be more expensive. I chose to book ahead anyway because of the convenience. (Especially because I would have to depend upon an English speaking agent at the train station.) The route that seems to be the problem is Vienna to Prague.

>And i've read you can make reservations at the www.bahn.de German rail site for trains all over Europe if you have a pass.

You can even make a reservation if you don´t have a pass or ticket... though these reservations won´t be of much use to you.
But you can only make reservations for domestic trains online at bahn.de (or to a few major destinations just outside Germany). For reservations outside Germany you have to call them - the database the DB employees can access is far, far larger than that available for us mortals online. Don´t know why it is so.

>The route that seems to be the problem is Vienna to Prague.

There is no reservation requirement between Vienna and Prague on day trains. If you travekl 1st class you will have a lot of empty seats to choose from.

there have been recent posts giving the DB number to call and speak to English staff who apparently easily can make the reservations. So not online but someone, maybe High Wall, has the number, which has been posted on Fodor's recently. Search for scatcat will yield it i think since he/she is one who first whose post first allerted me to this great service.

For the date that we are traveling Vienna to Prague, only one train came up. I It arrives in Prague at 7:30PM. I've already arranged for hotel pickup at this time. (I thought this would be easier than worrying about pickpockets at the train station and unscrupulous cab drivers that I've read about on this forum) I did not click the later trains icon recently - but I think those trains arrived in the middle of the night. I may try that other telephone number if I can find it, or wait until I get to the train station in Munich. Thanks for all of your help! Now if I can only decide on a hotel in Vienna!

there are actually several timings between these two cities.

Where did you look for the schedule?

If you are going to be in Europe any time before the date of travel you could get seat reservations at any European rail station.

I do not understand why RE is telling you the cost of the seat reservation depends on the cost of the ticket...that's why i simply gave you the phone number and left it at that.

We could be here for DECADES talking about the pros and cons of RailEurope especially if PalQ and Altmiro and I are doing the talking!


You can check schedules here:

http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en

<<< I do not understand why RE is telling you the cost of the seat reservation depends on the cost of the ticket >>>

Because they are out to screw the customer

<If you are going to be in Europe any time before the date of travel you could get seat reservations at any European rail station.>

not true IME at least not always or not to count on. Amsterdam recently i wanted to book a night train from Cologne to Copenhagen and initially the buy would only book me from Duisburg to Cope because that's where the connecting train from Amsterdam tied in.

He said he would not book from any other German station - then i said i wanted, with my railpass, to look around Cologne during the day and hop the night train from there (actually i booked from nearby Hagen where the train started) and then in a matter of seconds he did it.

But he would not likely book any other trains for me.

So though in theory they can they don't always and you can't depend on it even though they are all tied into the same Euronet type computer system that RailEurope taps into.

I've been in Spain several times when they would not make onward French connections as well.

But try anyway.

In any case Vienna-Prague is a snap so cancel the reservation IMO

RE site only displays selected trains even though they can book any train - that's why if using RE i always advise talking to someone in person who will do a manual check on the real RE booking site which will contain all trains, not the odd one that raileurope.com shows.

>So though in theory they can they don't always and you can't depend on it even though they are all tied into the same Euronet type computer system that RailEurope taps into.

PalenQ,

AFAIK the RailEurope is only tapping into the public part of the SNCF servers - which are even more restricted (MUCH more) than the public part of the DB database. For the voyages-sncf.com, the railway network more or less ends where you cannot get a direct (no changes) train from anywhere within France.

I think - know that Raileurope taps into Euro Net - the pan-european rail booking system so if what you say is true they may well be able to book many more tickets than sncf site.

As RailEurope owns DER - the former German railway franchise in US they can also tap into the bahn.de system and actually do order some of the reservations from Germany.

To clarify i know for a fact that RailEurope can book practically any train in Europe - not sure what system they use but they can - many more than they display on raileurope.com and that's why i always advise talking to someone who will do a manual search of whatever sights they use.

>To clarify i know for a fact that RailEurope can book practically any train in Europe

OK, so it is the same problem as with bahn.de website - the "hidden" network - but what about the ticket ptices? Does RE itself also bring up the "real" ticket prices when booked by a RE employee/travel agent, or are they still as inflated (at least for Germany, Switerland and countries further east) as the raileurope.com website indicates?

Prices are often inflated with a few exceptions - some ICE trains on bahn.de may actually cost less thru RE - afew of the higher priced ones. Prices match the RE web site in that regard - it's all in RE data base and why they don't display on re.com all their offerings is beyond me.

and why are Swiss Passes about 15% cheaper last i checked than same pass thru RE? Makes no sense either. sbb note owns a chunk of RE.

At times it seems that Wandrian Rail, a competitor of RE in that they wholesale passes and tickets to other agents and are one of the five (i think) annointed Eurail Pass and Eurail Tariff outlets in the US - given franchise to issue passes and pt-pt tickets, etc. can also be cheaper than RE but i haven't checked in a while.

Wandrian was started by RE folks and i believe uses the former Italian Railways (CIT) Eurailpass franchise they bought.

And the president of Wandrian rail was the former president of Raileurope. In fact when using the word RailEurope we should say SNCF - as French rail owns the largest chunk of RE, with the Swiss being minority and silent partners it seems.

The president of RE always comes right from the SNCF.

Thus all the derogatory missives aimed at RE should in fact be aimed at SNCF - the same SNCF that offers very cheap prices at www.voyages-sncf.com - SNCF has obvious chosen to soak folks who like OP are novice travelers and who naturally want no hassles. Veteran travelers often don't seem to be able to put themselves in a novice's shoes to feel this. That said the advice here on Fodors often gives novice types the confidence to see how easy it can be done in Europe.

But the 'bad' guy is not RE but the SNCF if we're throwing darts.

I've gotten tickets in many European train stations- including Prague and Banska Bistrica in Slovakia- back in 1994 when no station agents spoke English. It's not that difficult- you say the name of the city you want and how many tickets (learn the numbers in whatever language). You also need to know how to say round trip (return) or one way - look it up at Babelfish.altavista.com. It's part of the adventure to try to communicate wth people in another country- I don't know why so many people try to isolate themselves from the local language and culture when they travel! I think the reports of pickpockets and cab drivers rip offs have been greatly exaggerated- just be careful with your stuff.

>But the 'bad' guy is not RE but the SNCF if we're throwing darts.

Seems like they have introduced a two-tier price system (illegal in the EU) through the back door.