Seat reservations are an essential part of leisure rail travel in Europe, as many European trains require Interrail and Eurail travelers to reserve seats.
We’re very happy to launch a major expansion of our seat reservation coverage, now offering reservations for DB, SNCF, Eurostar, DSB, ÖBB, CFL, ČD, ZSSK, and MÁV trains.
Seat reservation — optional or required?
We'll know the answer. Our data that tells you if you need to reserve a seat for a specific train is very exact: not per carrier but rather per exact train departure and therefore works as a trustworthy source. This data point is also available via our API.
Passholder fares? Seat reservations? Never mind.
Train carriers handle seat reservations for Interrail and Eurail (and other rail passes) in different ways. Some carriers differentiate between a train ticket and a seat reservation, where the latter is often optional. Others sell something called passholder fares — a designated type of ticket just for people traveling with a pass. Some carriers sell both, depending on the train in question. The complexity is real.
We’ve worked hard to create a layer of logic that abstracts this complexity and automatically selects either a seat reservation or a passholder fare depending on the train you or your customer is booking. At All Aboard, everything is simply a seat reservation.