Interrail vs regular tickets

Booking tickets with an Interrail pass can - in some cases - save you money. How does this work? 

Most people associate Interrail passes with summer adventures on trains around Europe. Many people still assume it’s only valid for students or people under a certain age. 

But in fact, you can book a pass at any age, and use it in winter as well as summer. For rail travel to ski resorts, it can in some cases be a money saver and be preferable to buying point-to-point tickets as one normally would. This particularly applied for skiers who are starting out in the UK further from London, because the interrail pass can be used to include your travel to and from St Pancras. It depends on where you are starting from and which ski destination you are travelling to. 

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Which Interrail Pass to get

Photo: Daniel Elkan

There are several types of Interrail passes. If you’re using your Interrail pass to travel from the UK to a ski resort, it’s the Global Pass that you need to get. 

There are various kinds of Global Pass, but for travel from the UK to a ski resort and back, you’ll probably only need to get a ‘four-days-within-one-month’ pass, which costs £184.
https://www.interrail.com/en/interrail-passes/global-pass 

Tim Barton, a skier whose party often uses Interrail, told me: 

‘The Interrail Global pass allows for two days of travel in your home country (i.e. UK). Usually this would be the journey out of the country and back in. This can be on any number of trains, midnight to midnight. Eurostar from London counts as part of the UK travel. As long as all your UK journeys are undertaken on the same day as the Eurostar travel, it’s covered. Currently, seems to not have any additional fees for seat reservations too! This means, if we’re careful and plan with military precision, undertaking the trip from and back to Cornwall on the same day we take the Eurostar, the train is included in the Interrail pass. And the pass is pretty much the same price as a return trip to Cornwall anyway!’

Why not a One Country Pass?
You might be thinking ‘I’m going to a ski resort in France, so perhaps I only need a one-country pass.’ However, that won’t work because it won’t allow you to travel from the UK to France with the pass.  The Interrail website says: 

‘A One Country Pass is only valid within the one country indicated on the Pass. This means that you generally cannot use a One Country Pass to travel from another country to the country indicated on your Pass.’

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Which trains require seat reservations?

Depending on which trains you might need to book seat reservation. These cost on average between €10 - €30 per train. Eurostar, TGV and night trains require a seat reservation.  But some trains, such as ICE trains in Germany, don’t. That means you can travel on ICE trains using only your Interrail ticket. 

https://www.interrail.com/en/support/reservations/which-trains-require-seat-reservations

A seat reservation is a ticket that ensures you'll have a place on a particular train (even if it's extremely busy). Reservations are mandatory for most high-speed trains and all night trains in Europe.

Seat reservations average costs 

Domestic trains: €10
International trains: €15
Night trains: €20

https://www.interrail.com/en/book-reservations/reservation-fees

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How to check seat reservations in advance

Circular seats on TERPhoto: Daniel Elkan

For any given train, on any given date, there are a limited number of Interrail seat reservations available. So before purchasing an Interrail pass, you’ll want to check whether reservations are available on the trains you want - and what the reservations will cost. You can do this in advance using sites such as Rail Europe. 

You'll see that in the search box, just above the red 'Search' button, there is an option to 'Add rail pass'.  And as mentioned, you can use this to check (without buying a pass first) whether seat reservations are available on the train you want to travel on. 

 

Questions:  You want to know whether you can get a seat reservation before buying an Interrail ticket.