Eurail Pass -- Is It Worth It?
 

I'm taking a trip through Europe next month: London (fly) Berlin (rail) Paris (rail) Nice (rail) San Sebastian (rail) Barcelona (fly) London.

I was planning to get a Eurail pass (3 country select pass). But a friend of mine who took a similar trip says no-way, its not a good idea. She says there are all these extra fees that they don't tell you about, including:
- A 10-15 Euro reservation fee for EVERY train you take, regardless of distance. And you can't get on without a reservation
- A 50-60 surcharge fee for all overnight trains
- Additional surcharges for some fast trains and for some local lines that aren't part of the Eurail system.

My friend said I should just buy tickets outright, which would probably be cheaper and wouldn't limit me to the train if I wanted to fly or drive (although I really don't).

Thoughts?

Also, are there any websites where I can lookup fares for trains throughout Europe? I've been trying to go to national rail company websites, but am being frustrated with everything in lanugages I can't read. :-(

These eurorail passes can be good value if you travel long distances and travel several trips in a day. On a three 3 day pass you basically get 3 day unlimited train travel accross Europe!

Regarding the extra fees this is what the the Eurorail pass website says:

Prices are inclusive of extra charges for IC, TGV, EC and the ICE in Germany
Extra charge (for reservation and extra drink or meal) required for the following trains:

Germany
on Thalys
France
on Thalys
Italy / Switzerland
on Cisalpino Switzerland
Spain
on Euromed, Alaris, Altaria and Talgo Triana
REMEMBER! not valid in AVE, Talgo 200 and Altaria

Since you are palnning to travel through several countries I think it would be cheaper and easier to go with the pass. I have not found a site where you can book long distance rail trips in Europe. You would have to go to the individual booking pages on the German, French and Spanish railway websites and book your trips individually.


These days there are many low cost airlines and even standard airlines have very good deals for intra-eurpe flights some times.
Spanair and Iberia have 19 Euro one-way flights within Spain on offer. You might want to look into that. It may come out even cheaper to fly at least some of the longer distances eg. Berlin-Paris or San Sebastian-Barcelona.

Hope this helps you!

Be aware that Rail Europe tends to charge considerably more than the local price for the ticket. For trains within a single country, you can probably find a price on the relevant railroad's site. I haven't seen a way to price an international ticket online.

Nonsense. There are SOME (mostly long-distance) trains on which reservations are compulsory, but on the vast majority of trains they are not.

There are no surcharges for overnight trains if you are happy to travel in an ordinary seat. There are surcharges for couchettes and sleepers. (A couchette is a six-seat compartment which converts into six bunks at night. You get a blanket but no other bedding. A sleeper has between one and three beds, with proper bedding)

That's good news. For the non-res trains, do you have to buy a 'ticket' from the ticket counter (which would be free with pass), or can you literally walk into the train station, onto the platform, get on the train and ride, showing the conductor your pass when he comes by?

No need for any formalities - you just get on the train.

Just to clarify, reservation fees are not included for the French TGV services so you must purchase one for your Paris-Nice journey.

Passes are not valid on Thalys so you cannot reserve seats in the same way as for a TGV journey. You can, however, purchase discounted "Passholder fares" although these may not be cheaper than some of the promotions on Thalys fares. The reason why passes are not valid on Thalys is because it is classified as a "Premier" train and First Class does offer complimentary at-seat meals and refreshments.

Most railway websites show fares only for domestic trips, but www.sncf.fr shows international ones too. The fares for city-to-city trips that raileurope quotes in the U.S. are ridiculous; avoid them! I don't know where your friend got the information for reservations, but a domestic reservation in Germany costs 3 Euros, and I paid just about that for a TGV reservation from Milan to Paris. Almost all trips - even long-distance ones- can be safely taken without a reserved seat, except perhaps on Fridays and Sundays. The way to avoid the extra-fare Thalys train from Berlin/Cologne to Paris is to travel via Saarbruecken or Strasbourg, and between Nice and Spain there are various trains that are included in the Eurailpass, some probably requiring changing trains at the border. I've always found that a Eurailpass is by fare the cheapest way of getting around Europe if I have some long trips in my itinerary. By all means buy one, especially since the prices haven't risen this year, while the Dollar has dropped precipitously. It's an even better deal now.

The very best website for helping you decide if a railpass will help save you money on your itinerary (and which one to buy) is here:

Rick Steves' Europe: 2005 Guide to European Railpasses

I can only agree with the other FTers trying to convince you to buy a Eurailpass.

It is going to be the cheapest way for you to travel across Europe as your trip is already next month.

LCC's would be interesting if you had made your reservations 6 months in advance in order to take advantage of their really low fares.

Reservations on high speed trains are cheap, between $ 4.- and 12.- depending on the train and the time you are traveling.

Some night trains as already mentioned, request a reservation. The rates for a sleeper seat are: appr. $ 4.- , a 6 bed compartment around $ 15.- and sleeper 2 or 1 bed can be quite expensive, up to $200.- if you choose the luxury compartments...

For TGV's in France you should not pay more than $ 10.-

Happy travels

Other things being equal I would always go for a pass rather than individual tickets - less hassle, more flexibility. I bought a Eurodomino pass for a trip to Germany last summer. I suspect I could probably have done the trip for slightly less by buying individual tickets and taking advantage of certain special offers they were running at the time, but I thought that the convenience of just hopping on and being able to plan things at short notice more than made up for the few extra Euros.

OK, you guys win. A Eurail pass it is!

Thanks so much for all your help.

From Rick Steves' website:

Charity Eurailpass Special

Because of its sales success in 2004, Rick Steves' Europe through the Back Door has been awarded 50 Eurail Flexipasses (any 15 days out of a two-month period, first class travel anywhere in all 17 western European countries covered). Rick will give these for free to the first 50 travelers who each send us a $700 donation for Bread for the World.

This special value comes with important fine print:
--Passes will be pre-validated for the two-month travel period you indicate, starting no later than 6 months from the date of issue. You may start and complete travel any time within that two-month period, selecting your 15 specific travel days as you go.
--No online, fax, phone, or credit card orders. Mail the special order form.
--These passes cannot be refunded or exchanged under any circumstances.
Railpass insurance is not available.
--Order must be received at least 3 weeks before your departure from the U.S. or Canada.
--Valid for new orders only, no return or exchange of existing passes.
Pass is delivered for free, along with all of our usual railpass thank-you gifts.
--If we run out of passes, we’ll let you know!

--------

I have no affiliation with RS or BFW; I just stumpled upon this a few days ago.

You asked, and herewith my opinion:

No, they aren't worth it, or rarely are. Buy point-to-point. Since you rarely can buy cross-border tickets from any individual country's rail network website, and since raileurope is nearly always ridiculously overpriced, wait until you get overseas. The last time I needed a cross-border ticket (Verona - Innsbruck) was last April; I couldn't buy it off trenitalia.com, so I bought it in Venice. I bought it 6 days in advance, but there were plenty of empty seats (travelling on a Wednesday morning). Rail agent sold us a special for two people travelling together - in short, there are deals available that save you money outside of any theoretical rail pass savings. ( I say theoretical, because my idea of a trip is not spending all of it on a train, which is about what you have to do to get a railpass to break even.)

For many trains, you end up having to pay supplements and/or get reservations in additional to the pass anyway, so there goes the so-called 'convenience.'

The costs for doing this in some countries, notably anywhere in northern Europe or Switzerland, will rack up very quickly.
Supplements can be paid on board. Trains that absolutely, positively require reservations are few and far between, and unless you're in peak season on a peak route there's little reason to get them if they're optional.

And for me, the greatest attraction of a rail pass is the flexibility, especially when exploring a new region. Want to stay a little longer? No problem! Don't like the look of a town? Hop on the next train out! Sunny day? Take a train to the beach or the mountains. Rainy today? Head back to the city.

I would ignore this kind of advice.

Instead, it's best to determine for oneself, based on one's own plans, whether a pass makes sense. (And I actually HAVE purchased, and made good use of, a Eurailpass, several years back. On other trips to Europe, though, I DIDN'T purchase one. The decision was based on comparing the cost of point-to-point tickets with the cost of the pass. And I did NOT spend "all" of my trip on a train to make the pass pay when I did buy one!)

Once again, read my reference in post 11. Rick Steves and staff have compiled a truly helpful resource on European railpasses.

Dordal , would you be so kind as to tell us how much you are going to pay for your Eurailpass? and also your age? I'll try to find out how much you would have to pay for tickets as posted in the opening post.
This thread could go on for ages with each time one poster being against and one for it... As I am in Europe, I can make a few phone calls to find out what will be most adantageous to you.

Good idea!

One reason I posted the link in post 11 (Rick Steves Guide to European Railpasses) is that it assists you in estimating the cost of point-to-point tickets for your expected itinerary.

However, one of the magical things about railpasses, at least if you get the unlimited, consecutive-day kind, is that you are then free to take little extra side trips and day trips without worrying about the rail cost. Also, I was inspired to travel farther afield than originally planned (to Copenhagen for a couple of days and then up to Stockholm for a few, even though my original trip plan was no further north than northern Germany). The cost of an overnight couchette at the time was less than $20 supplemental, far cheaper than the hotels I normally stayed at, so this was a "bonus" as well. I had about four or five overnight train trips in all on this particular trip; some were in the cheapest couchettes, and others were in more comfortable though somewhat more costly digs.

I realize that the OP may not be planning to purchase this type of pass (vs. the more limited "X days in a given time frame" pass), but the above is something to think about for anyone who is considering the more classic type of pass. Some of the spontaneous "day trips" I went on were quite lengthy (Munich to Bamberg and back in one day), since I had the prepaid fare in my pocket. @:-)

To my way of thinking, the real value of an overnight train trip in a couchette (or even a sleeper car) is not just the fact that you don't have to pay for a hotel room, but that you can get from one place to another while you'd otherwise be sleeping. Spending good "being-there" time in transit is more expensive than money.

Do your homework
 

Do your homework on the Internet before you decide. A Eurail pass is a good idea if you will use it enough, but you can save a lot if your travel schedule isn't too heavy. Every country has a web site for its train system. In Italy, for example, it is trenitalia.com. You can look up train schedules and fares easily.

In my opinion, EURRAIL passes, which at one time were a bargain (20 or 30 years ago :) ), have gotten to be too expensive. [You are paying for countries you may never visit.]
EUROPASSES, which give you a limited number of days in long period, can prove to be very cost effective. In many cases with proper planning the 3, 4 or 5 country versions can be the cheapest. Sometimes dedicated country passes could be real prize winners.
Overnight trips in coach used to be the biggest bargains, you get from point A to point B, arriving early in the morning, having saved a night in hotel costs (sometimes feeling like a pretzel, if you share a compartment with 5 other people...). The European rail network have added so many high speed lines that finding overnight trips (in coach only) is becoming very difficult; it is now also very hard to find first class coaches on overnight trains.
Even with some of the negatives I have noted above, the balance tips in the favor of a railpass over individual tickets if for no other reason than the fact that you can go to interesting places at the spur of the moment--and this is what makes travel exciting.