In general, any traveler that will occupy a seat needs to purchase a train ticket. Children under the age of 4 may travel on your lap, though the exact age can vary by rail company. If you want them to have a reserved seat on a train that offers or requires a reservation, you would need to pay the same price as an older child on most trains.

Yes. There are discounts available for certain train tickets.

The first type of discount is for advanced booking. This applies mostly to high speed trains and night trains that require reservations. For these trains, within the same category of service, rail carriers set aside different groups of seats at different prices. The cheaper seats have a limited availability or are reserved for sale within a certain time period before the train departure. Once this group of cheaper seats has sold out, or the booking window for those seats has passed, the next group of seats goes on sale, at a higher price, and so on. The closer to the departure date you book, the more expensive you will find the seats. This is why we always encourage you to book your seat in advance to get the best price.

In addition, certain trains offer discounts for youth, child or senior travelers. We always attempt to find the cheapest fares for your traveling party and get you the discounts you're eligible for. This is why it's important to accurately indicate the composition of your traveling party when requesting fares and schedules from our website. You may also have to enter the age of certain travelers, so we can determine whether they're eligible for certain age-related discounts.

For most trains, the price quoted is based on 'live' availability from current train seat inventories. However, for certain trains, we cannot check fare availability at the time of quotation due to the technical limitations of the international rail distribution system. Therefore, we use a stored price to build your quote, based on previously confirmed fares for the trip you requested.

Sometimes we find out that the fare used for quoting your trip is no longer available upon confirming your reservation. At that time, we receive a new price from the system based on that very moment's availability. Unfortunately, due to those same technical limitations, we are unable to update the stored price for a specific train, even if we find out at the time of confirmation that a fare is no longer available.

Rest assured that we're working actively to ensure that all prices quoted to you are based on live availability and limit the usage of stored prices for quotation purposes.

For most trains, the price quoted is based on live availability from current seat inventories. However, for some trains, we cannot check fare availability at the time of quote due to technical limitations of the international rail distribution system. Therefore, we use a cached price to build your quote, based on generally available fares for the trip you requested.

Sometimes, we find out that the fare used for quoting your trip is no longer available as we're trying to confirm your reservation. This is when the system gives us the new price based on that very moment's availability. This explains why you may receive a message advising you that the price has changed from the original quote.

Unfortunately, we are unable to honor the original fare that was displayed online. As mentioned in our terms of use, schedules listed in our booking tool are subject to change depending on availability, and final fares will be confirmed upon purchase.

Yes, in most cases. The fares displayed on our website are based on current seat availability at the time you requested the fares and schedules for your itinerary. Our booking engine has a direct link to the inventory of many European rail carriers including SNCF, Eurostar, Thalys, RENFE, the UK's Association Of Train Operating Companies and many more.

However, for some routes, we can only display a cached price at the time of quotation, based on generally available fares for those trains. Actual confirmation of space and fare takes place upon completion of your order. If there are any issues, you'll be contacted.

Fares quoted in our booking engine include all fees. We do not collect sales tax on rail products.

Yes, on certain rail lines. There are two types of e-tickets: Print at Home e-tickets (PAH) and Print at the Station e-tickets (TOD). Please see our dedicated sections on PAH and TOD tickets for more information.

There are three ways to issue European train tickets. Please see the section on Issuing Methods for specific information.

It is possible to have different issuance methods within the same booking. Please pay attention to the issuance method for each train in your itinerary and verify that you have all necessary documents, or that you know how to retrieve any print at station e-tickets if required.

If your train tickets are paper tickets, then yes - the travel document you receive from us in the mail are your actual train tickets. Do not lose them because we cannot replace them. Only the original paper ticket will be accepted onboard the train. No other document such as a voucher or invoice can be used in lieu of the original paper train ticket.

Availability of e-tickets depends on two factors: whether the rail company operating the train offers e-ticketing, and if it does, whether Rail Europe was granted technical access to their inventory to enable e-ticketing on their behalf.

Not all European rail companies offer e-tickets. But when they do, we work with them to make this option available in North America. And we'll continue to do so in order to provide more e-ticket options for your convenience.

At this time, we are unable to offer this service. Unlike airlines, most rail carriers do not offer the possibility to select your specific seat. Please see the section on Seat Reservations for additional information.