Mid December travel

Hi John,  I face a similar challenge.  I am travelling for 7 days from 20th Dec to 27th Dec with my 2 children !.   I get to Paris on 20th and trying to work out how to get out that night but like you said the timetable runs out 9th Dec.   I guess we need to know from this community is how to navigate that?  Will the new timetable be the same, similar to the current one or do things change wildly.?     Also, how to book a seat if a timetabe doenst exist ..  ..   Bit if a worry.  

Thanks Danhiel.

Yes, I understand that some operators may  publish their timetables in October. However, my concern is that, in 2026, it still seems unnecessarily difficult to plan an Interrail journey well in advance when reservations cannot be made until timetables are released. This is particularly frustrating when the trip depends on Eurostar, as reservation availability for Interrail pass holders is limited.

I had already purchased my pass in the sale, taking advantage of the extra 15% discount, but I cancelled it within the seven-day cancellation period because I could not confidently confirm the trains I needed. It is a real shame that the lack of timetable and reservation availability makes committing to the trip so difficult, even when trying to plan well ahead.

Thanks for your reply. I’ll keep checking the relevant sites and hope the timetables are published early enough for me to secure the reservations and still make the trip.

You can already book Eurostar. They have published their new timetables.

You can already make Eurostar reservations for after the timetable change, and I see availability for the date I checked before Christmas. Try Rail Europe. 

The timetable change is a yearly event. It's frustrating if trains aren't open for reservation, but then they're not open for anybody else either, son they're not selling out

I am confident that, in this instance, the journey cannot currently be booked using my Interrail pass. Please try to make a passholder reservation for London St Pancras to Brussels Midi on 13 December using a 1st-class Interrail pass. I understand that Eurostar requires a separate seat reservation and that passholder seats are subject to availability; however, my concern is that I cannot obtain that reservation through either Eurostar or Interrail, despite already having purchased the pass specifically for travel of this kind.

I can, of course, buy a normal Eurostar ticket without using my pass, but that defeats the purpose of having purchased the Interrail pass. I would therefore appreciate a practical resolution rather than simply being told that the journey can be booked. If you are able to complete the reservation using a 1st-class Interrail pass, please provide the exact steps so that I — and other passholders experiencing the same problem — can do the same.

You’ve already been given the practical advice: book it at Rail Europe. This is a reservation, not a full ticket. You need to add your rail pass in the search box, and preferably not get cross with people who are offering to help.
 

There’s limited pass holder availability on the 13th - only the 1304 in Plus class or the 0901 in Standard - but there is something. 
 

Availability often opens up closer to the time, so if the times aren’t perfect, you can check again closer to the time and change the time for free on the Eurostar website, up to 7 days before departure. 

Thank you for the advice. I did follow it, but unfortunately both of my booking attempts were unsuccessful. Also yes I do appreciate this a reservation rather than a ticket as my pass will act as the ticket once any reservation fee’s have been paid. More specifically with Eurostar as there is no other option. I apologise if my earlier message came across as cross; that was certainly not my intention. My aim is simply to get the tickets booked successfully, so I will make one further attempt through Rail Europe.

Thanks Sean.

I’ve managed to find the right way to book the Eurostar and, as you said, it only shows availability for the 13:04 in Plus. I really appreciate the help and advise. However and Sorry to pester you, but I can’t seem to book the rest of my journey from Brussels onwards ( it says to early to book) but on checking earlier weeks it does confirm that no reservation is required and as there's no way of making one on the Rail Europe site for my onward journey either, . Am I right in thinking this will change over the next few days or weeks and the bookings will come available and with no way of booking a seat i will just use my rail pass as the ticket?

The international trains from Brussels and Hamburg have compulsory reservations in summer, but not at that time of year. 

Either way, you can’t book them through Rail Europe. DB or Czech Railways are the best place to book if you want a reservation. I don’t know when they are released though.

Entur.no is the site for your Norwegian reservation, which is compulsory and free. 

Very good guide to reservations on the Seat61 link that ​@Danhiel  posted above. Just click on the country of departure for each leg. 

DB release their trains on 14/10.

In general, use this page (already given earlier) as a guide to pass reservations:

https://www.seat61.com/interrail-and-eurail-reservations.htm

There are many, many wrinkles that need to be ironed out (by the carriers, not by Interrail) every year when the carriers update their timetables.  It’s simply a function of how complex the European rail system is.  I mean complex in a good way - that you can get from A to Z either directly on a high speed train, or via F, T and V on local trains.  The logistics of making sure that (almost) every train appears in the correct place at the correct time on the correct day is pretty amazing.  Picture what happens to all these plans when the local authority at T allocates funding to a new rail link or removes funding for the existing link at F and now the local trains can’t follow that route as planned.  Or some high speed line gets delivered early (it happens) and the trains that were going from A to Z are now going in the entirely opposite direction.  As above, it’s amazing that things work in the first place.

Which is all by way of saying that all of this is independent of the pass.  If the carriers haven’t firmed up their timetables then you will still be able to use your pass, you just won’t be able to plan 2 months ahead.

As for Eurostar . . . this comes up every year unfortunately.  There are certain times of year that are just busy on the route from London towards Europe.  Christmas is one of them.  It’s not a pass thing, it’s not a timetabling thing.  It’s just that a lot of people want to be on the train and may have got there ahead of you.  It’s a supply constraint.

Having said that, as indicated above, availability changes and seats get freed up.  For example, there are plenty of “Visit WW1 Battlefields” type tours that use Eurostar to get from London.  They have been known to be cancelled or retimed, so the seats they had booked become free.  I don’t mean battlefields tours specifically, just any organised tour from the UK that needs to get to Europe.