RailEurope.com Reviews

I purchased tickets before the pandemics started. I agree with all the posts this year that they are the worst. Their policy says if the train cancels they will refund you. After numerous emails I have been sent in circles. They lied to my credit card so now they won't cover the dispute. Beware. I won't use them ever again.

Purchased tickets for myself and wife in January and before the pandemic requested for refund. It’s so sad that no one responds to your emails and no contacts. This is a scam and would not encourage anyone to use their services. So sad.

You will never be able to get your money back from them. The site takes you around in Circles, no one to communicate with. We spend over $500 in tickets. Due to pandemic we were unable to travel. They stole our money and will steal yours too.

I booked 2 passes with them for this 2020 summer. Obviously, I am unable to travel during the pandemic. I am currently being given the runaround to get my refund (or at the very least a new ticket for next year).. Being made jump through hoops (phones disconnected or endlessly busy, generic unsigned emails with no phone numbers to call back, now the website is on lockdown etc), to now be told (after purchasing a protection for those tickets) that I need to provide the airwaybill number of the delivery company that sent them to me (6 months ago!!!!), WHO KEEPS THAT? I will never say it loud or often enough: DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY; they are not reliable. I wish I had read the reviews beforehand. I hope I help at least one traveller.

So before booking them in January 2020 for my trip from Minnesota to Europe, I saw all the horrible reviews. But I thought it'd be ok. Then the coronavirus, Covid_19 happened. Travel bans, closure, quarantines made me going impossible. I requested a refund over a month before I was supposed to get on a train. They refused. They stole my money for a trip I couldn't take. Do NOT book with them.

I was told twice that my train tickets are refundable due to Covid-19 outbreak, but I am getting a continual run-around. According to their response, every person has said that it is not their responsibility to issue the refund and they pass me along to somebody else. Now they won't even respond to me. Do not buy from this company.

I purchased a refundable ticket and they refuse to issue a 85% refund - per their terms. This is during the COVID-19 outbreak. I can not believe they endorse stealing. How is this a legitimate business practice?

I contacted Rail Europe to cancel tickets due to the coronavirus. I was told that the rail service was not refunding any tickets due to the virus outbreak. I am not sure if this the railway position or if it is just this service. I will not be using this service again and would advise the same for anyone else contemplating this service.

If I could review Rail Europe a negative star, I would. This company does not deserve any stars whatsoever! Horrible experience!! Consumers. Please STAY AWAY from this fraud agency. I bought 4 euro Spain passes and I couldn't book my seats. Every time I would check, no schedules would be fully open. I would log in to their live chat, and every person I would speak to would give me different answers. One of their reps told me that it would take a few days even though another one of their colleagues said to wait till next month. They had me going in circles! They provided me a phone number for customer service. I called. It was a machine who sent me back to their live chat. I cancelled my tickets due this reason. Being misinformed and not being able to book my seats! I get an email from Tejal... that it would take 10 business days to get refunded only for the passes... NOT the protection plan!

All the other reviews pretty much sum it up. Poor service, canceled trains, lack of refunds, etc. You actually don’t need Rail Europe. They are a broker, instead try the actual train site or just buy the ticket at the station. You will save yourself lots of money and grief.

Several weeks prior to our planned departure, we purchased 6 Eurail Global Passes for our family trip. We also purchased their “Travel Protection Plan” which started it covered lost or stolen passes, cancellation once no questions asked, and other assurances. As it turned out, my husband who is 77, was suddenly hospitalized 4 days prior to our departure for Europe.

At first I would like to say that we are used to travel through a large part of Eurasia and North America since late 1970-s. This year RailEurope advertised a "Black Friday" sale. The price was good, so I ultimately ordered a 3-month rail pass for myself and 3 days in one month rail pass for my son. The sale started very bad: the site of RailEurope was unable to take the order for about two days because they did not program it correctly. There was no way to contact them by the phone, I had to e-mail to the head of customer support, Shirlee **. After three days being lost, they fixed the problem of their website. But it was a limited sales event, with three days already lost.

Rail Europe booked train travel for me from Vienna to Paris, taking me first to Munich then Stuttgart then to Paris. Due to a rail strike the last leg was cancelled. Rail Europe would not refund the cost of the entire trip, only the Stuttgart to Paris segment. I understand it was not their fault and that part of it was running, but my agreement with them was to get me from Vienna to Paris, not to Stuttgart where I would need to wait three days before I could get a train. I ended up booking a flight to get where I was going. Not their fault but they did not do what they agreed to do. I don't think that should be money out of my pocket. Won't use them again, that is for sure! Wish I had read the reviews before I booked with them.

Traveling to Austria and then to Slovenia for the first time we wanted to experience as much of the beauty of the country as possible. What better way than to book a train from Salzburg to Slovenia? First we were mailed the tickets along with someone else's tickets. They were incomplete so no way to get in touch with them. We had a train switch along the way. We had 10 minutes to reach the platform. We got to the platform only to find someone yelling at us to get on the bus to go to Slovenia. No train. No reason or explanation.

Booked several months in advance and paid for the insurance through Rail Europe. Rail travel from Rome to Milan on the Trenitalia and Milan to Paris overnight 1st class family sleeper car on Thello train. Notified by Rail Europe one day prior to our trip July 9 (in a very confusing email) that overnight train cancelled due to a mudslide from July 2nd in the French Countryside. Informed by email to proceed from Rome to Milan on first segment as there would be no interruption and we’d be taken care of by Thello in Milan to Paris and that our trip would not be ”affected.”

Please read all the reviews on this site. I wish I had. Raileurope is nothing but a scam. Very deceptive and there's no reason to buy from them. Buy direct. Cheaper and better service. They will fee you to death. And after I realized all the additional charges I tried to cancel (literally minutes later), they said I could but it would cost be about 22%. And there are so many caveats you're sure to get screwed even more. They make all their money on added fees. Run from this company.

I was taking train from Paris to Salzburg together with my girlfriend, and there are few connecting trains in between which I will breakdown below:

I booked SNCF Train tickets from Paris to Bayeux a month before going on my trip. I did not look at the reviews on-line prior to booking. I did so after and got very anxious based on what I saw however, I did not have any issues. In fact aside from the worry that I got from on-line reviews, everything went well. I booked online and was emailed two digital tickets instantly. I also received follow-up emails reminding me of my upcoming trip with ticket information. The prices were comparable and it was as easy as printing my tickets and scanning them at the gate.

This company adds a surcharge for their train ticket booking service. They are only middlemen who charge. There are no savings or advantages to booking a train with this company. Book directly with the SNCF and save money and disappointment. Do a little homework.

Back on Aug 2nd, my three travel companions and I booked four tickets from Seville to Madrid for Oct 2nd. They were the best advertised price at 23 euros/person. My card was charged for $99USD at that time but I never received a confirmation. Upon reaching out to their company that same night, Sia emailed, "We are waiting for RENFE to load fares and schedules for all routes in Spain for all upcoming travel. Once we receive the confirmation from the rail carrier, we will notify you. We appreciate your patience and ask that you wait for a response from our web booking team". I practiced extreme patience until my companion asked me to reach out to Rail Europe on Sept 19th.

Booking **. I made the above booking, they froze the funds in my bank account but failed to issued tickets and told me that it was because the bookings/timetable is only available within 2-3 months of travel but in my case the travel was within 1 month so it did not make any sense. DO NOT BOOK WITH THIS COMPANY. I wished I had read the reviews prior booking with Rail Europe. They told me it would take up-to 15 days for the funds to be released which I find to be crap. BEWARE OF EURORAIL.

This company is absolutely awful! It is a SCAM. DO NOT buy train tickets through this company. They are NOT tickets. It is simply a reservation to buy a ticket. Buy your tickets at the train stations and DO NOT go through this company.

We are a tour company, we have used RailEurope for two years now. They have messed up almost all of our bookings. Names misspelled, misinformation. They tell they have sent us the tickets, they never show up. Misbookings. They never read a complete email. Never answer all of your questions. NO 24 SUPPORT. DO NOT USE! YOU WILL BE VERY SORRY. And on top of everything else,they do not care, they act like it is your fault. Did I mention that you will be very sorry if you use them?

My wife and I set up our dream vacation, something in planning for more than a year. We purchased 2 first class tickets from Lugano Switzerland to Basel Switzerland for travel about 45 days out. We picked a specific train time and routing. We received instead (via mail) paper tickets with no reservation but instead an open booking good for 3 days. This essentially puts us in the "take your chances" mode. I immediately requested a refund and also notified my credit card company to execute a charge back. RailEurope employee (40 minutes on hold) was not helpful and insisted that I should have known this but he could get us reservations for an additional fee. No idea how this will resolve as yet.

I made reservations for the Eurostar from Paris to London. When I looked at the printed information, it had us on the wrong day. I don't know if that was my mistake or the company's. So I tried calling to make a change - I was on hold for almost an hour! Finally through an online chat I requested a callback. Apparently one cannot makes changes online. So the guy who called me back was nice but he told me the change of date would increase my fare, in addition to change fees which were more than my original fare. So I asked him to check other times which might be cheaper. He found one, but it was not convenient for me. So I said to leave it as is.

I travel to Europe often and usually book directly with service providers. This time I decided to try RailEurope and I would like to spread the information to all passengers to save their time and stress. Unprofessional, unresponsive. Taking forever to confirm booking, enough time so all other options are sold out. If I knew they would not be able to confirm the booking I would have enough time to look for other options as there was plenty at the time but no, they never got back after numerous tries. Please do yourself a favor and don't use them.

We book some trains for our Trip to Livorno, Pisa and Florence and due to some cruise line technical issue we could not make on time. We tried to get our refunds back from our tickets and was very hard to reach RailEurope customer service; then we tried to request the funds from the website in which they utility on the page says that we were entitled to. After 3 weeks and several email to RailEurope they finally got back to us saying that we will not get our money back due to their policy after sales. This company is scam... I do not recommend to use them at all.

I bought a ticket from France - Frankfurt. After making the purchase they replied saying they would confirm the purchase of the ticket with 5-7 business days. I received an email the next day stating that there were no 2nd class tickets available for the time I wanted - I could either upgrade to a first-class ticket or take a 2nd class ticket for a later Train. I had to respond within 24 hours or they would cancel the ticket. I accepted the extra fee to receive the first-class ticket, however, I did not receive any confirmation that the payment had made or receive my tickets. Fifteen hours before I was scheduled to take the train, I went to the train station I was scheduled to leave from to see if there was any record of the tickets being purchased. They did not find any tickets in my name. I emailed them to cancel my ticket but have not heard back from them.

Zero stars. Don't waste your time. I booked tickets a month in advance before leaving for Europe. Over the past several weeks, I had numerous live chats with agents who continually lied to me that "it'll just be a few days, give it a few more days." I never received my tickets. Literally the day before our trip I contacted them again and they told me my card was denied (?), which was also a lie, since I was immediately able to use the same card to book a flight between the cities we were going to travel by rail. These clowns added $1000 to our trip by forcing us to book a flight last minute because the trains were now full. Utter incompetence. Avoid.

We wanted to book train fares from Prague to Budapest, and registered with RailEurope to send us an email when the tickets/fares were available. They sent us 4 emails over a period of weeks saying that tickets were now available and each time we went to book the tickets they were not there. We emailed many times and they simply replied you have to wait until the tickets are available! But you told me in many emails they WERE available. In total frustration I eventually found out on the internet that you can book directly with Czech railways, and we were able to book 2 fares for $AUD 55, whereas RailEurope was quoting the exact same fares for 2 at $AUD324!!! Beware, some price gouging I think.