I didn’t use all the trips so I prorated the numbers to reflect that. I’ll make it clearer in the post.

“The pass I used was a first-class, 15-day, two-month Global pass that costs $1,189 USD. (Why first-class? Because it was the only pass you can get at the time. Now you can get both as an adult.) My pass allowed me 15 non-consecutive days of travel in a two-month period (i.e., 15 train trips). That means the value of each journey works out to be $79 USD.

Since I was only in Europe for two weeks, I didn’t use my entire pass. The five train rides I took had a value of $395 (one-third the value of the pass).

With all the fees for seat reservations plus the base pass price, the total cost of my train trips was $800 USD. Without the pass, my first-class tickets would have cost me $975 (738 euros), which means I saved $175 by using the Eurail pass.”

The Pass cost $1189; the individual trips cost $307 above that; that equals $1496, not $800 USD. First class tickets would have cost $975 USD. That means you overpaid $521 USD — not exactly a savings. Even if you had not paid extra for the trips, the cost of the pass itself was still higher than what the first class tickets would have cost by $214 USD.

Or did the Pass cost less at the time of purchase? If so, you should reveal that to your readers.

Hi Maria,
It depends on the country and type of train. On the Eurail Rail Planner iPhone app, there is an option to filter for “Trains without compulsory reservation.” If that is enabled, you shouldn’t have to pay any additional charge for an unreserved seat, although you might also be wasting time with some seriously inefficient itineraries. My advice would be to experiment with and without the filter enabled. In Germanic and Central Europe (Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Scandinavia, etc.,) you really can just hop on almost any train and find an unreserved seat. In France, Italy, and Spain, the fast trains can be complicated to use with a Eurail, so ask at the station first.

Hi Marcie,
My recommendation (if you haven’t already made your travel plans), is to check Seat61. It includes detailed guides on how to travel between cities in all of those countries, as well as a more details on how/if a Eurail is worth the cost than Matt summarized above in his excellent post. I traveled through most of those countries on a Eurail pass last summer, and was quite happy with my decision.

Note: Eurail has several different options which effect the price.
1) If you and your sisters are traveling together, you can save 15% on the Eurail pass by purchasing a Saver pass (you must always travel together).
2) Eurail also offers Flex passes which allow you to only travel for a few days out of a longer period.
3) Select passes cover fewer countries, and save you money if you know where you will be traveling.

You might consider getting a Select, Flex, Saver pass which covers Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Germany. You can just pay the cash fare for trains in Belgium and the Netherlands (and potentially save money if you don’t take the Thalys high-speed train).

Reservations: Eurail’s reservation system is a nightmare. It’s completely overpriced. If you are traveling through Germany, the DB website will usually let you make a seat reservation. ACPRail.com will let you make train reservations in Scandinavia. Alternatively, you can go to any major city train station in Europe when you arrive, and make all of your reservations for almost any train in Western Europe at once speaking to a real person who will almost certainly speak English. I booked seat and sleeping compartment reservations for trains in Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway from the Swiss National Railway in Basel, for instance.

Marcie