USIT interrailing ticket - confused!

Bananaleaf

Hi there

I'm going interrailing this summer and just bought my ticket yesterday. I chose the 'travel 10 days out of 22' option as we think it suited us best.

However, I'm a little confused about the filling in of the flexi pass travel calendar.

We are told that for every day we travel, we must fillin, in pen the day and month we travel. We will have 10 spaces to do this. That part is simple enough.

The tricky bit seems to come when you travel through midnight.

The accompanying booklet is very confusing on this one (or maybe it's just me!) It says the following:

"If you board a direct overnight train (with no connections) after 19:00h, which arrives at its final destination after 04:00h, you only need to use one travel day - the date of arrival. For instance, if you take the direct overnight train from Budapest to Munich, which departs on August 2nd at 21.10h and arrives the following morning at 06.15h, you only have to write August 3rd on your travel card"

- taken from page 9 of InterRail pass guide 2014.

Now, here is my confusion:

1. At what point AFTER 04:00h does is become more than one day. Example: We are looking at a train from Split to Budapest which will be 14hrs 50 mins, leaving at 20:00h (after 7 as stated above) and arriving 10:50am (after 04:00h as stated above) - does this stilll count as one day? A travel day is meant to be classed as midnight to midnight, so under normal circumstances that wouls be a 24hr period, so does this count as one travel day, does anyone know?



2. And what about the hrs between midnight and 04:00h that don't seem to be accounted for? What if I get a train at 23:00h (after 7) and it arrives at 2am (NOT after 4am) - or is it just assumed that people wouldn't arrange an arrival time for that hr of the morning? Which we haven't by the way, so maybe this question is redundant.

If I could get an answer to question one really that would be great! I will go back to USIT but it will be a full week before I can do so and would really like to get answers ASAP

Thank you

Slunk

It counts as one day after 1900 until midnight the next day. So you can use the pass for further travel the day you arrive in Budapest too I think

As for your second question, I'm not too sure.

Bananaleaf

Thats great to know, thank you!

jjbrien

The night trains btw are fab to use you can even book beds on them. Its a great cheap way to use the night train if you want to travel far and get the most out of your pass.

Bella10

Just wondering is it definitely worthwhile to get the USIT interail ticket?

Our route is roughly Zadar-Zagreb-Ljubliana-Budapest-Vienna-Prague. I was considering just paying for travel as we went along as it means we can choose buses if we like and I've also heard that east Europe trains are not as expensive as trains in France/Germany etc..

munchkin_utd

regarding the second(and first) question, its quoted in the text above.
You get a few hours for free before midnight with night trains - if the night train is long enough to justify the title.

otherwise (aside from night trains/ long trains at night) you need to validate one day for before midnight, and one day for the part after midnight, or possibly cheaper just buy a single ticket for some or all of that journey.

regarding whether a pass is good, its not as useful as it used to be, but the one major advantage is that you arent relying on advance booking special limited offer rates, and you can travel on peak time trains which you mightnt get a cheap ticket on anyhow.
And, you are flexible too as you can just hop on any train (with certain limitations as some trains need a seat reservation, but anyhow) and chop and change plans as you want.

That freedom is a big part of "interrailing". Suppose youre in Berlin and like the cut of the place and decide spontaniously that you like it so much you'd prefer to spend a few extra days there, not bother with cologne en route which maybe was pencilled in for a couple of days and just head straight to Amsterdam after Berlin (heck, maybe with a quick stopover detour via Hamburg).
With interrail you just do it and youre in charge, with booking specials in advance youre stuck with whatever plans youve made months in advance - or possibly loose the cash paid for the ticket and rebook a fresh ticket.