Interrail isn't worth it

Highland37 · 23 Oct 2018

Just my thoughts but at €269 for five days plus ~20-30 Euros for a seat reservation (compulsory) it is much more hassle and more expensive than point to point tickets.

Yes, non high speed trains can be used but that means the Interrail Pass is already an inferior product. My other half and nine year old spent a stressful morning at Gare de L'Est yesterday with the result that all trains were fully booked and no interrail places were available.

No online operator can offer seat reservations cross border. Yes Interrail can do it manually for you but it takes them a week.

Avoid Interrail and get point to point.

RailUK Forums

JonathanP · 23 Oct 2018

Interrail isn't worth it... in France.

In Germany no reservations are required on any service, even the TGVs allow anyone on once they cross the border.

Germany is probably the extreme opposite example, but I don't think there's any country anywhere near as bad as France when it comes to extremely expensive compulsory seat reservations, quotas, and an abysmal non high-speed alternative.

Seat61 summarises it pretty well:

In Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark & most of central & eastern Europe, seat reservation even on longer-distance inter-city trains is optional and there's nothing extra to pay on top of the pass

In France, Italy, Sweden, Spain & Portugal, passholders must make a reservation and pay a fee for almost every inter-city journey,

Highland37 · 23 Oct 2018

UK is even worse for Eurostar. £33 per person, each way. That means for the three of us, it would cost nearly £200 in reservations alone return to Paris. Total racket.

AlexNL · 23 Oct 2018

InterRail/EURail can be worth it, but you'll have to plan your trip up front to determine if it's actually beneficial for your situation or not.

For example, Eurostar charge £33 per person for an IR/ER reservation. If you're not particularly savvy on a specific train, it might be worth checking out Eurostar Snap as they sell tickets for £25 (but the time will be announced later). When combining this with an onward journey in Ile-de-France or around Belgium, it might even be cheaper to buy separate tickets for that as well - saving you a day's worth of InterRail travel. It could even mean you could buy a cheaper pass.

JonathanP · 23 Oct 2018

Eurostar is a special case. Even safeguarded rail staff who qualify for 'free' travel have to pay a fee there, I believe it's connected to the cost of doing the security checks.

I'm baffled why you would classify Interrail as a 'racket'. No-one would suggest it is the most economical way of booking all international rail holidays, it's up to the consumer to decide if it suits their needs. Certainly if Eurostar is a major component of your trip it is not, that should be obvious.

Bletchleyite · 23 Oct 2018

Highland37 said:
UK is even worse for Eurostar. £33 per person, each way. That means for the three of us, it would cost nearly £200 in reservations alone return to Paris. Total racket.

For Eurostar. For non-UK people the UK is better than Germany - it's valid on every single domestic train without reservations or additional costs other than the Cally and possibly the Night Riviera. In Germany it's not valid on open access operators, in the UK it is.

As for SNCF, my dislike for them is well-known but I personally believe they should do the honourable thing and withdraw from the scheme.

Highland37 · 23 Oct 2018

UK is good for domestic travel on Interrail but you can only do two journeys. Free reservations made by phone last night for London KC to Inverness. Easy.

But...absolutely no one offers an easy way to book online with an interrail pass. SNCF online works within France. DB - no option I can find online. Rail Europe, yes it works but they presume you want the tickets posted so don't allow any bookings after 4 days to the travel date. UK no online options. Etc

I am taking the train to Bourg St Maurice from Inverness in December. It's much cheaper and easier to just book normal tickets.

The reservations hassle and fees are killing Interrail.

Bletchleyite · 23 Oct 2018

You do not have to reserve on any domestic DB train. Just don't bother. It's a walk-up railway the same as ours. If you're that bothered, do it in a ticket office on arrival.

cactustwirly · 23 Oct 2018

Highland37 said:
UK is good for domestic travel on Interrail but you can only do two journeys. Free reservations made by phone last night for London KC to Inverness. Easy.

But...absolutely no one offers an easy way to book online with an interrail pass. SNCF online works within France. DB - no option I can find online. Rail Europe, yes it works but they presume you want the tickets posted so don't allow any bookings after 4 days to the travel date. UK no online options. Etc

I am taking the train to Bourg St Maurice from Inverness in December. It's much cheaper and easier to just book normal tickets.

The reservations hassle and fees are killing Interrail.

Just use the DB website and select seat reservations only, they're only €3 euros

Polarbear · 23 Oct 2018

I'd agree with the OP that an InterRail is probably not worth it for the likes of France, Spain & possibly Italy, where point to point tickets probably work out cheaper. The last time I went for a run around France, I booked point to point tickets on the TGV legs to the south of France, and used the IR for non-reservable TER journeys (plus a couple of Inter Cities supplements which aren't that expensive).

As for Eurostar, yes, the reservation fee is a bit steep, but again, much will depend on where I want to go. For example, on my last Inter Rail, I used E* to go out, but flew back to the UK as it was much better value (and saved a day & overnight hotel as well).

It's a good value ticket if one wants to go go exploring off the main line & retain flexibility - something you lose with point to point tickets, but I agree that it's perhaps not as flexible as it ought to be.

Groningen · 23 Oct 2018

There are not many open access operators in Germany. Not many trains a day and die Bahn has much more to offer. I paid an extra amount to make use of the UBB from Züssow to Poland, but that is now Bahn. That nighttrain from Muenchen to Hamburg is operated by Austria railways and when unlucky to pay a charge.

Highland37 · 23 Oct 2018

I should say that I am doing these train journeys to avoid use of planes for environmental reasons.

I have just looked at both bahn.de and .com and neither will allow you to reserve a seat Paris to Nuremberg and offer no option for use of Interrail pass. Y

Groningen · 23 Oct 2018

The difference between Helsinki and Hamburg is that it takes 2 hours by plane and with some luck 2 days by train.

cactustwirly · 23 Oct 2018

Highland37 said:
I should say that I am doing these train journeys to avoid use of planes for environmental reasons.

I have just looked at both bahn.de and .com and neither will allow you to reserve a seat Paris to Nuremberg and offer no option for use of Interrail pass. Y

That's the option you should select.

M28361M · 23 Oct 2018

cactustwirly said:
That's the option you should select.

I don't think that will work for international journeys, it finds the trains but says "Reservation impossible".

gordonthemoron · 23 Oct 2018

Stick to central and eastern europe, much cheaper than France

30907 · 23 Oct 2018

Highland37 said:
I should say that I am doing these train journeys to avoid use of planes for environmental reasons.

I have just looked at both bahn.de and .com and neither will allow you to reserve a seat Paris to Nuremberg and offer no option for use of Interrail pass. Y

As the site says, they can't do reservation-only on compulsory reservation trains - which the Paris services are, as they work to SNCF rules. I am surprised the SNCF type sites can't.

Highland37 · 23 Oct 2018

M28361M said:
I don't think that will work for international journeys, it finds the trains but says "Reservation impossible".

30907 said:
As the site says, they can't do reservation-only on compulsory reservation trains - which the Paris services are, as they work to SNCF rules. I am surprised the SNCF type sites can't.

Exactly, DB will sell you a ticket on a train in Germany (even if it's an SNCF one). SNCF will sell you a ticket on one of their trains only and only for journeys in France. In practice there is no difference; DB can only sell reservations for trains in Germany and SNCF only do it for France.

Rail Europe will sell you one, if you are prepared to wait a long time and interrail.eu if you can wait a minimum of a week, possibly more.

Eurostar can sell you a ticket, but not through their website (you get to the payment stage and it rejects it) and you have to call them as I did yesterday.

All very 1990s.

Groningen · 24 Oct 2018

Call it bias, but i have more trust in the German railways than the French, but than it helps if you speak the language. Remember a nighttrain that looked empty, but still needed to pay for a kind of reservation going from Paris to Strasbourg.

cactustwirly · 24 Oct 2018

I would do something like; Munich - Salzburg - (Klagenfurt) - Vienna - (Bratislava) - Prague - Dresden - Berlin - Hamburg.
Gives you plenty of variety, very nice cities and lots of LHCS.

cactustwirly · 24 Oct 2018

I personally think an interrail pass represents excellent value for money, especially compared to an ALR in the UK.
However some of the reservations can be quite expensive.

Birdbrain · 24 Oct 2018

Yes Interrail is excellent in the correct countries. 3 days bashing in Hungary scoring 9 diesel locos in one day for something crazy like £47? Much better value than a railtour here.

Bletchleyite · 24 Oct 2018

Highland37 said:
Exactly, DB will sell you a ticket on a train in Germany (even if it's an SNCF one). SNCF will sell you a ticket on one of their trains only and only for journeys in France. In practice there is no difference; DB can only sell reservations for trains in Germany and SNCF only do it for France.

Rail Europe will sell you one, if you are prepared to wait a long time and interrail.eu if you can wait a minimum of a week, possibly more.

Eurostar can sell you a ticket, but not through their website (you get to the payment stage and it rejects it) and you have to call them as I did yesterday.

All very 1990s.

In the 1990s you could buy a through ticket from anywhere to anywhere (I had one on more than one occasion). It's gone way downhill from there.

MarcVD · 25 Oct 2018

Even on SNCF, Interrail can be good value. A few years ago, using a one country pass, I visited some endangered lines in 'massif central' : Jeumont Paris Clermont Neussargues Beziers Nimes Arvant Aurillac Toulouse Paris Jeumont in 4 days. An a few weeks ago my son went from the french border to Antibes and back, one day for each leg, also on a single country pass. Those trips were done without using high speed, only classical trains. Interrail in France is only problematic if HSTs are needed. A bit of geography and french network knowledge can avoid that. For example, knowing that it is easy to go from Paris to Lyon via Vichy or Clermont...

Welby · 25 Oct 2018

Highland37 said:
UK is even worse for Eurostar. £33 per person, each way. That means for the three of us, it would cost nearly £200 in reservations alone return to Paris. Total racket.

Eurostar supplement with a InterRail pass is £26.50 in 2nd Class & £33.00 in Standard premier.

Welby · 25 Oct 2018

JonathanP said:
Eurostar is a special case. Even safeguarded rail staff who qualify for 'free' travel have to pay a fee there, I believe it's connected to the cost of doing the security checks.

I'm baffled why you would classify Interrail as a 'racket'. No-one would suggest it is the most economical way of booking all international rail holidays, it's up to the consumer to decide if it suits their needs. Certainly if Eurostar is a major component of your trip it is not, that should be obvious.

The cost raised for "Staff" is the "Tunnel Tax" which is raised by the operators of the "hole in the ground"

Capybara · 25 Oct 2018

Highland37 said:
UK is even worse for Eurostar. £33 per person, each way. That means for the three of us, it would cost nearly £200 in reservations alone return to Paris. Total racket.

Eurostar reservations are now £26.50 with Interrail which is cheaper than you'll get if you are booking any other way. Plus there's greater availability than before. And you wouldn't use Interrail just for a trip to Paris and back. The value comes when you are travelling around once you are on the continent. I always tot up what my travels would have cost if I'd been using individual tickets and it's usually at least twice the cost of the Interrail ticket. I've generally avoided France and have yet to make a reservation once I'm on the continent.

Groningen · 25 Oct 2018

If you turn up with a global Interrail pass in London, Brussel or Paris for a space available seat on any Eurostar train; what would be the price than be for a one way ticket? To get from London to Lille took me about 10 hours.

Capybara · 25 Oct 2018

If there are seats available, the cost would be £26.50 (or 30 euros). But that would be taking a chance. Like all other bookings, it is recommended that you do so in advance. Bookings can also be changed in advance of travel, although I tried this a year or so ago when I arrived in Brussels with lots of time to spare and they would only offer a full-price ticket. I'm not sure whether this was because there were no seats available or because they didn't know the rules, which were new when this happened. Also, unless things have changed recently, you can only make a booking with an Interrail ticket over the 'phone or in person. Finally, a Eurostar booking with an Interrail ticket counts against a day's travel on the ticket so, if you've used up all the days then you can't get the Interrail booking rate.

I've used this about four times so far and, subject to all the above, I've not had a problem.

AlexNL · 25 Oct 2018

Capybara said:
Eurostar reservations are now £26.50 with Interrail which is cheaper than you'll get if you are booking any other way.

Except for Snap

Interrail isn't worth it

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