You can delegate any train you like to activate a day's travel. Once activated, even if you remove that train from the diary (meaning the day's travel diary is blank and the pass can't be displayed), the pass remains activated and downloaded to - you can make it reappear by adding any train.
Given that the pass is a day pass, with no information shown about the train, I don't understand the need to add a journey to it. I added a completely fictitious journey, then had it scanned without issue on two trains in succession that weren't that.
It's so that Eurail can attribute pass revenue to the railway operators based on usage.
Indeed. I've heard that this was an important factor for some of the railways not to pull out of the passes. In the past, some of them always complained they were not getting a big enough share of the pass revenue. But now, with a sample size of about 90%, their shares can be determined much more accurately. I think it also helps to get smaller operators to accept the pass.
I really don’t know why people have to abuse the ticket just to prove a point?
I don't know why people have to assume that other people want to prove a point or have some kind of evil intent. All I wanted was for the damn pass to show up so that I could get on my train, and (after a whole load of futile faffing about and going round in circles) I did the bare minimum needed to make that happen so I didn't miss the train.
This is news to me. Makes sense, but it's news to me. Throughout the process of buying and using the pass, this never came up - and no, I don't make a habit of reading the fine print. If it's that important, then it should be that obvious and that easy. Why can you add a train that leaves at 9am and arrives at 10am, then show the pass at 3pm without adding another train, if it's so important that you add every train?
Because that train could be delayed, or you might need to take a screenshot to claim compensation for disruption. You might also want to access a station lounge with your pass, which would require showing the barcode.
On the other hand, I found it very straightforward on my first try! Everyone is different.
Fair points.
Indeed
Knowing that I'd bought a pass for a number of days, and having gone through a series of warnings after clicking "Use travel day", I just didn't get why I couldn't see a barcode or something. "Add journey" wasn't intuitive to me at all.You might also read the confirmation e-mail after buying the pass. It's in there if you buy from Interrail, right below the link to download the Rail planner app. I'm not sure though what the e-mails from myinterrail.co.uk look like.
I used the app for the first time a couple of years ago with trepidation after reading all the horror stories, and being aware of my limited tech abilities - but everything went absolutely fine and has been absolutely fine every time I've used a Senior Interrail pass since (except when my phone threw a wobbly and I had to transfer the passes to my wife's phone - which worked perfectly).
How do you mean? If you arrive significantly early on a previous train and make an earlier connection?
More commonly you arrive on time and catch a train that was timed to depart in the past but is late enough to catch. I've made minus 25 and minus 40 minute connections in germany last year, the latter getting me to where I was going 1h20 early for a change.
Though not anymore once the travel day is over. I suspect that was a bit too flexible...
Manually added journeys can overlap with other journeys.
Every once in a while, someone really scrolls down and looks for their train. Happens sometimes in Belgium, I assume because they still can't scan the barcode.
I'm pretty sure I've done that last year as for a delay repay I had to take a screenshot with the planned trains added on the pass (which I partially never added while travelling, as the delay meant I had to take the next one)
The change is quite recent indeed. I usually put in the planned journey and don't change it.
Yes, it's quite rare that this happens but it does occur - I would estimate around 5% of the time. However, the rate is notably higher in Switzerland (along with ID checks, which are requested around 70% of the time vs ~10% elsewhere).
Happened again today...
Interesting, I've never seen that. Please report it to customer service and ask them what the problem is:
Done!
Yes
Yes, you can take as many trains as you like, on days where you have activated your Interrail pass.
You can nominate up to 2 days when your pass is valid in your country of residence (in addition to all other countries that Interrail covers).
Yes, this. As an example, on my most recent ticket I travelled from Great Britain to mainland Europe and back on three occasions. I used the return domestic journey on the second trip and the outward on the third. I also used one day of travel to go from Belfast to Dublin.
For paper passes, the code you need starts with I and then a series of numbers, if I remember correctly.
There is no number starting with an I absolutely anywhere on the printed paper ticket.
it's a letter I not a numeral.
