RailEurope.com

I and my elderly parents were booked through Rail Europe on a Zurich-Paris train in September 2011. Arriving twenty minutes before the departure time, we boarded the train but found another party sitting in our pre-booked seats. We showed them our tickets but they refused to move. I left my parents there with our luggage, whilst I then walked through the next two carriages. Unfortunately, all seats were taken/reserved, and given the age and health of my parents, it wasn't an option to have them standing for the duration of the trip.

I returned to our booked seats, tried again to induce the people there to move, and they continued to refuse to do so. I then ran through the carriages and along the platform, in an effort to find a porter or guard who might have been able to resolve the situation. By now the train was due to depart, and we still didn't have seats for my parents. At this time, having found no one of authority, and as our tickets weren't valid for any other seats, I had my parents leave the train whilst I proceeded to search for a policeman or rail representative. The train then left.

I found a rail representative who referred me to the ticketing office. I queued with my parents there, only to be told it was a matter for the travel desk. We then waited in a queue for a travel desk representative, only to be told that we had no choice but to buy new tickets, which were going to cost circa CHF800 in order to get us to Paris in time for our pre-booked flight connection. Given we didn't have that money available, we then waited for the tourist information office to open in the hope they could have advised on a more affordable travel option with no success. After emergency calls to the UK to get a funds transfer, we then returned to the travel desk to book Zurich-Basel and Basel-Paris tickets, which we were able to use with no issue, and which got us to Paris in time for our next leg travel commitment.

Despite countless calls, emails and letters to Rail Europe, and interestingly I keep being transferred to their USA office, I have had no satisfactory response. Simply, they're just keeping me in a loop of resubmitting my complaint, presumably to avoid needing to address a refund or credit. I am very, very disappointed. Does anyone know of a regulatory authority we can escalate this to, or an email address that works for one of the RE execs?

I have purchased an online ticket from Zurich (Swiss) to Paris. Print at station ticket option was selected, while ordering. I got the confirmation details via email. Credentials for printing ticket at station was emailed to me as well. I reached Zurich on the 10 Nov 2011 by flight. My ticket to Paris was on 12th Nov. On 12th Nov, I couldn't find any place to print my ticket at Zurich. When I inquired at central station, I was updated that this option is not available in Switzerland! That was so disturbing, and I struggled a lot to find an alternative travel arrangement to Paris, for me and my wife. Many things were missed in Paris due to the changes in our plans.

I purchased, on June 17, 2011, two first-class seats in coach 12 of train 6176 from Cannes to Paris on September 16, 2011. These seats/coaches did not exist; train 6176 had only eight coaches (1-8). We were unable to board the train, and were forced to find alternate transportation. I have requested a refund from RailEurope without any satisfaction or reply.

On the 15th of August, I'm returning by train from Lourdes to Paris. What would be my surprise that my seat was the site of the bikes and I had no bike. I would not wish anyone to travel 8 hours sitting on its side without a place to rest your head. The publicity put you on the web is a person sitting comfortably in a front seat or back, but comfortable. If I knew that I was going to ride the bike site for 8 hours traveling all night, I had sought another way to travel. I would not wish anyone to ride this way. I wanted to change seats but the company told me not. That give poor service to tourists.

Rail Europe customer support representatives do not provide accurate information regarding unused portions of tickets. Their instructions to contact a railway official before the trip are invalid and they don't tell you that you need to have the person that punches the ticket to place a note on the ticket in order to get part of a ticket refunded. Failed to get proper refund on two passengers that did not travel on the trip.

I agree that Rail Europe leave a lot to be desired. I haven't actually taken my trip but my experience at their branch in London, rude staff, talk to you like your a child and run the place like an army barracks. Not impressed at all. Furthermore, the tickets they sold me don't even have our names, they claimed they were the last seats and yet the train isn't even on their internet site and their is a cheaper fare online which they told me there wasn't in branch. Why do they treat you like this? simply because they have no competition! There is no other company that provides the services other than the country of origin.

They still have not credited our card, they wont respond by telephone, my emails come back to me that they cannot find my name in their database, they have my tickets, i have a copy of my receipt, they cant find it, I'm getting the runaround by these people and cant stand this any more, I've practically begged,since we allready lost hundreds of dollars with this trip, I should not have to lose this amount also, we did everything correctly that they requested, now they will not refund our money.

1. Raileurope/der travel publications, widely used by AAA travel agencies, do not mention any limited availability of certain fares on the Eurostar train. "14-day Advance Fares" and "Student Fares" are not noted as "limited in availability". No asterisks and no fine print in any of their publications. However, when I tried to obtain their published advance and student fares, I was told none were available, even though I qualified. When I boarded the trains, they were only half full!

2. der travel took money from my Mastercard account the very day of booking. However, a booking mistake required a second booking, and the refund of the first booking took one month.

3. It took 3 months for Isabella to respond to my complaint about the lack of "limited availability" text in their literature. Her response was a simple "that's the way it is done."