Question about Eurail Global Pass - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

HotHotHeat · 06-20-2010, 06:55 PM

WTF does this mean:

Global Pass continuous: you may travel by train each day for 15 days up to 3 months.

Link to page:

http://www.eurail.com/eurail-global-pass?currency=usd

drewboy12 · 06-20-2010, 07:03 PM

3 months ... can use it for 15 days.... so in other words its a 15 day voucher, but you can use those 15 days within a 3 month period.

drewboy12 · 06-20-2010, 07:05 PM

BTW I was not coming across rude... Kinda sounded that way, lol. I looked deeply into that pass last year so I had all the info for it. Hope that helps

HotHotHeat · 06-20-2010, 07:11 PM

Haha thanks man. Did you end up doing it? I'm looking at getting the 2 month one, what other options are out there?

slots881 · 06-20-2010, 07:30 PM

I've used the 10day/2month pass before. It worked out great. It's so easy to travel by train in Europe, and they run like clockwork. I used it on 2 different trips to Europe, within the 2 month period and didn't have any problems. I don't know if they are the same now, but they were basically a hole punch card and they filled in the dates that you used it on.

flamingreen · 06-20-2010, 07:42 PM

Make sure you double check the countries the Eurail pass is valid in. While the train you're taking may depart and arrive in valid countries, if it passes through a country en route that is not part of Eurail, you will be making a donation to the conductor.

MrMastodonFarm · 06-20-2010, 07:54 PM

You can use it 15 days, or 3 months, whichever time period comes first.

Lego Man · 06-20-2010, 08:52 PM

COOL!!! I just bought the Beneleux-Germany pass (6 days in 2 months)!!!

I can't wait to use it!

Bill Bumface · 06-20-2010, 09:20 PM

I was just going to warn you about the Beneleux part.

If you are taking a train from Paris to Berlin you may find out the hard way that you have to go through Beneleux and your 3 country pass you bought won't work for that trip because of it. Whoops.

Besides that I never had a problem at all. Just watch out for certain routes for which reservation is mandatory. You'll have to pay a reservation fee, but it's not much.

Fobulous · 08-30-2010, 01:50 PM

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.

BlackEleven · 08-30-2010, 01:58 PM

^ That sounds like the full fare, usually the reservation fee is very small.

IliketoPuck · 08-30-2010, 01:58 PM

Icon · 08-30-2010, 02:11 PM

Quote:

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.

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.

Bill Bumface · 08-30-2010, 02:34 PM

I swear it was way cheaper to make your reservations there. I took trips a lot longer than Amsterdam to Paris and paid way less than that for reservation.

mykalberta · 08-30-2010, 02:51 PM

For what its worth, when I was there 6 years ago (italy, Switzerland, Germany) I found the EuroRail not to me of much use considering just buying a ticket at the station was very very affordable. 1st class was cheap, and so long as a company donesnt book out a specific train car you never have to move.

When you get there its like with anything, you feel obligated to use the EuroRail pass rather than do something else you might want to.

My useless trip to venice instead of going to Rome was because we wanted to use up the Eurail pass. Pigeon and stale pond water - no thanks.

Icon · 08-30-2010, 03:03 PM

That site I linked has a good breakdown as far as whether or not it'd be worth it to you to have the pass.

When we went, we did the 5-country select group pass. I think it worked out to be about the same as it would have been had we just bought tickets there.

Flames Draft Watcher · 08-30-2010, 03:05 PM

Quote:

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.

There is a high speed train from Amsterdam to Paris, the TGV I think. Its just really expensive even with your discount from the Eurail pass.

There should be normal trains that do the same route but take a lot longer. I travelled Amsterdam to Paris a couple summers ago on Bastille day, it was quite busy (standing room only) presumably because it was Bastille day but didn't cost me anything extra.

On many trains I don't recall making any reservations. You just got on and sat down wherever and then showed your eurail whenever the person checking tickets would come around and they would initial it. However ahead of time you are supposed to fill out at the bottom of the pass with the date that you are travelling. So lets say I'm planning to travel on the 30th of August, before I get on the train I just fill in that date in the bottom section.

Some trains you definitely had to make reservations though, sometimes there was a slight fee of a fee euros. But yeah, those high speed trains through France will cost you an arm and leg in addition to the Eurail pass. I managed to travel from the Netherlands to Paris, to Carcassone, to Barcelona, and then back to Frankfurt without paying anything extra in fees or perhaps only a few euros.

I think the documentation included with the pass would indicate which trains required reservations, which required extra money, etc.

Often the people at the train station were quite helpful unless it was a country where English was iffy (Poland, Czech, etc).

Icon · 08-30-2010, 03:06 PM

^ ya what FDW said.

cznTiburon · 08-30-2010, 03:12 PM

I used the global pass last year and you do have to pay for some train reservations. On trains where the seating isnt assigned you end normally getting that ride for free (for instance we went from munich to prague for free). The pass normally doesnt cover things like overnight trains so be wary of needing to take any of those but for the most part reservations are quite cheap. On average we only paid 5-10 canadian for a reserved seat with the rest covered by the pass.

That doesnt mean they are all cheap though, some do get quite pricey (Paris - Brussels was like 30 Euros one way). But without the pass that trip is almost 200 Euros.

My buddy lost his pass and the rides that we were paying 5 euros for a reservation he was dropping upwards of 60-100 Euros so keep that in mind. Its best to figure out how many times you would take the train and if a pass would be benefitial. We were there for 2 months and took a train roughly every 3-4 days so it worked for us, but if your only one 3 or 4 trains it may not be worth it

Table 5 · 08-30-2010, 03:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mykalberta

When you get there its like with anything, you feel obligated to use the EuroRail pass rather than do something else you might want to.

Best decision I made last time I was in Europe (Spain) was to rent a car once we we're done with Barcelona. We went at our own pace, stopped whenever we wanted to at small places that weren't accessible by a train, and to top it all off got to drive a great little Audi on some of the funnest mountain roads I've ever been on.

It was probably more expensive (but I doubt by much), and personally, it made the trip a lot more enjoyable.