Interrail seat reservations.

[morrisobrien]

Attempting to book the following seat reservations only with my Interrail Global Pass......having all sorts of problems!
SANTANDER-MADRID.
MADRID-MARSEILLES.
MARSEILLES-FRANKFURT.

Any advice obviously appreciated?

 

[Gerald Fiennes]

I suspect the international ones can only be done the old-fashioned way, ie. by phone through a Continental travel agent who will charge a fee for doing it. The Madrid - Marseilles might be a little full so it might be worth doing this in advance, but I would think you can do the others on the ground at a local ticket office.

 

[rg177]

The ouiSNCF website may sell you Madrid to Marseille and Marseille to Frankfurt. Although from what I recall, the reservation fee for both is quite hefty.

Santander to Madrid can only be done by Interrail Reservation Service or on the ground in a ticket office.

 

[dutchflyer]

Mad-Mars: here is no through train, you have to do that in at least 2 stages and these cost the earth extra, if you are hell-bent on using the hi-speedo's. RYAN, if not on strike again, is likely cheaper as just these supllmts.
ONLY domestic in FR can be easily done online, from 2 or 3 month before, via oui.sncf.com. NOte: I've heard that in the UK this may lead to much higher priced other sites-read seat61 for advice. Its 10 eur per seat/trip if lucky, 20 if not (quota exhuasted), I've just printed out 1 myself.
INterna. for trains in+out of Fr is simply not possible online.
MUCH better advice and other many tips-how to travel far more cheaply etc. is on the dedicated forum of www.rail.cc/en, run by IR-old hands peter and flo.
in general it can be said, that Es and Fr are simply the worst countries to use IR, plus that depending on route, savings may be nil compared with early advance fares.

 

[DEE-DE]

According to Deutsche Bahn's international conditions of carriage Marseille-Frankfurt Pass 1 (Pass covering both countries) is €13 in standard class and €30 in first class. Should be available by just calling DB. If I remember this correctly, DB UK charges no booking fee and uses a decent exchange rate. The German phone number charges in € but there should be a delivery charge of €3.90 or €4.90. If you pass through Germany beforehand you could phone the German number (premium number) through Skype and then pick the tickets up from a ticket machine.