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Originally Posted by Fobulous
I had a question in regards to the Eurail pass.
The wife and I just purchased the 3 country select pass, and now we are looking into booking reservations. I went onto raileurope.ca and found that in order to book a reservation we have to pay an insane amount of money considering we just bought a pass!
For example, we have a 1st class eurail select pass, but I go to book a train from Amsterdam airport to Paris and it is going to cost us $178 in reservation fees for the direct train. Does this seem right? Or am I going the wrong route about booking my reservations?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
-FoB.
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The passes provide full fare... on certain trains.
There are trains between major cities which are not bullet trains. They stop in many cities/towns along the way, and take a while to get you to your destination, but are "free" with your pass.
Bullet trains require a reservation, and there is a reservation fee, as well as their ticket prices are not fully-covered by your Eurail passes. You simply get a "Eurail Pass Fare". (discount). How much of a discount depends on what time of the day you're travelling... really early in the AM there may be only $20 discount, but it can be well over 50% off during peak hours. (Think of it as your fare covered by the pass + supplemental costs associated with the high speed train)
Just take a look at booking a ticket with your pass (I came up with the same $178 you mentioned), vs just booking a ticket for the same train without a pass (I'm not sure on your travel day/time, but the random day I picked showed prices ranging from $220 (really early AM) to $600 for a first class ticket).
Also, 2nd class seats are cheaper. And for the Amsterdam-Paris bullet train (30mins), there's really no benefit to 1st class for that duration imo.
For travel in Europe by train, and other random information for your trip - check out this site: http://www.seat61.com/Railpass.htm I went to Europe for 5 weeks last year, that website was my information guru.