Interrail sale: up to 50% off for one week only

If you have ever tried to buy a European rail pass, you will have faced a choice: Eurail or Interrail. That choice no longer exists because as of now, a single name applies for both: Interrail. Same trains, same 33 countries, one less thing for travellers to work out before they go. 

To mark the change, every Interrail Global Pass and One Country Pass is on sale for one week only, from Thursday 24th September until 10:00 CEST on Thursday 1st October, and the longer the Pass validity, the bigger the discount: 50% off any Pass that runs for a month or more, 15% off anything shorter. Here is what that buys you, and a few routes worth building a trip around. 

The offer at a glance 

• 50% off Passes with a validity of one month or longer. 
• 15% off Passes with a validity under one month. 
• Applies to every Interrail Global Pass and every Interrail One Country Pass. 
• Book from Thursday 24th September until 10:00 CEST on Thursday 1st October. The sale closes at 10:00 CEST that morning, not at the end of the day. 
• The discount is already in the prices on site. There is no code to enter. 
• Refunds: a Pass bought in the sale can be refunded within seven days of purchase. After that it is non-refundable and non-exchangeable.

What the Eurail and Interrail merge means for you 

If you have ever planned a European rail trip from Sydney or Seattle, you will know the moment. You find the Pass, you start reading, and then you hit a fork: Interrail or Eurail? Two names, two websites, two sets of search results, all describing the same idea. 

That fork has gone. The two names came from different starting points Eurail was created for people travelling to Europe, Interrail for people already living in it and for decades they ran in parallel over the same railway network. Since 10 September there is one name for both: Interrail. 

What changes for you is mostly what you no longer have to do. One name to search, one site to compare on, one Pass covering the same 33 countries. If you already hold a Eurail Pass, nothing changes: it stays valid exactly as bought, on the same terms. And the first thing the new name brings with it is this week's sale.

Experience The Interrail Effect for yourself

The Alps, slowly 
Start in Zurich, take the hourly train to Chur, and then let the Rhaetian Railway do the work. The Albula line climbs from Thusis towards St Moritz on stone viaducts finished in the early 1900s, spiralling through tunnels. It has been UNESCO World Heritage since 2008. Carry on over the Bernina line and you drop through Poschiavo, the Italian-speaking corner of Graubünden, and out at Tirano in Italy by late afternoon. In autumn the larches turn the colour you will spend the rest of the trip trying to photograph. 

Both routes have a panoramic service, the Glacier Express and the Bernina Express, and those need a paid reservation on top of the Pass. The ordinary Rhaetian Railway trains run the same rails, stop more often and need nothing but the Pass. 

Break the journey at Filisur for a walk out to the Landwasser viaduct, the one that curves off a cliff straight into a tunnel mouth. The marked trail from the station takes about 45 minutes each way, and if you would rather stay put, the carriage window does most of the work anyway. 

Italy, for the food and the fast trains 
Milan to Florence takes under two hours. Florence to Rome, an hour and a half. That is close enough that a Pass turns Italy into a series of long lunches connected by short journeys, which is arguably the correct way to see it. 

Autumn is when a Pass earns its keep here, because the food moves out of the cities and onto the lines the fast trains don't use. Alba's white truffle fair runs through October and November, and Alba is a regional train from Turin: no reservation, covered by the Pass. Marradi, up the single-track Faentina line out of Florence, holds its chestnut festival on Sundays in October. Neither is a trip you would buy a separate ticket for. With a Pass in your pocket they cost you nothing but the morning, and you can stay the extra night in whichever town fed you best. 

North, until the light goes strange, in the best way 

The Bergen line took fifteen years to build and opened in 1909, and 471 kilometres later it still does the same trick. Out of Oslo, up the Hallingdal valley, then 100 kilometres above the tree line across the Hardangervidda, the largest mountain plateau in Europe. Finse, at 1,222 metres, is the highest station on the Norwegian network and can only be reached by train or on foot. Late September and early October put autumn colour on the plateau and almost nobody else in the carriage. Seven hours, ending in Bergen on the water.

Push further and Sweden runs the long one. Stockholm to Narvik is about eighteen hours, so you sleep through the forest and spend the following day watching it thin out, until the last stretch drops you past Abisko to an ice-free Arctic fjord. Break it at Kiruna or Abisko if you would rather not take it in one sitting. A berth needs a reservation on top of the Pass, pass-holder berths are limited, and it saves you a hotel night. 

A two week trip you could actually book 

• Days 1 to 3: Amsterdam. Canals, the Rijksmuseum, and a train out to the coast when you have had enough of both 
• Day 4: Amsterdam to Cologne in under three hours, then on to Frankfurt. Take the slow line down the river rather than the high-speed route via Limburg: the castles come thick for about an hour between Koblenz and Bingen, and with a pass that choice costs nothing 
• Days 5 to 7: Munich, with a day trip into the Bavarian Alps at Garmisch 
• Day 8: Munich to Innsbruck, two hours, mountains the whole way 
• Days 9 to 11: Venice, then Bologna for the food most people skip 
• Days 12 to 14: Florence and Rome, ninety minutes apart, finishing somewhere with a view 

Four countries, one Pass, and not a single airport transfer. Fourteen days sits in the 15% bracket, so if you can stretch the validity past a month you move into the 50% one.

The practical bits, from people who book these all day 

A Pass is not quite a golden ticket, and the difference is worth understanding before you go. 

Seat reservations are the thing that catches people out. On Germany's ICE trains you can walk on and sit down. On Italy's Frecciarossa, France's TGV and every night train, you need a reservation on top of your Pass, and it costs extra. Pass holder allocations on French high-speed trains are genuinely limited, so if your trip depends on a specific TGV, book that leg as far ahead as you can. 

Choose your validity before you choose your route. The deeper discount sits on Passes valid for a month or longer, which changes the usual sums: at 50% off, a one-month Pass can land below a two- or three-week Pass at 15% off, so it is worth pricing both before you pick.

Buying now doesn't start the clock. A mobile Pass sits in the Rail Planner app until you activate it, and you have 11 months from the date of purchase to do that, so a Pass bought in this sale can still start a trip in the summer of 2027. Each travel day still has to be added in the app before you board, not after the conductor appears. 

Where you live still matters, in two ways. First, your own country counts differently. A Global Pass is built for travelling between countries, so journeys inside your country of residence are limited to two: one outbound journey at the start of your trip and one inbound journey on the way home. Both use a travel day like any other. Everywhere else on the network, travel is unlimited on the days you activate. 

Second, a One Country Pass is not sold to residents of the country it covers if you live in Italy, you cannot buy a One Country Pass Italy and the Passes for Switzerland and Great Britain are sold to European residents only. We will tell you at checkout if a Pass is not available where you live. 

How to get the discount

There is no code to enter and nothing to tick. The discount is already applied to the prices you see, so the Pass you are looking at is the promotional price. 

It covers every Interrail Global Pass and every One Country Pass booked from 24th September until 10:00 CEST on 1st October. Passes with a validity of one month or longer get 50% off, shorter validities 15%. Subject to availability.

One week, one name, up to 50% off 

The sale lasts a week. The trip doesn't have to happen now though. What you are buying is a morning in a month you haven't chosen yet, when breakfast is in one country and dinner is in another, and the only decision the day asked of you was which direction looked more interesting. 

The Pass has been doing that for travellers to Europe since 1959, under one name or another.  

Take advantage of this offer until 10:00 CEST on Thursday 1st October.  Explore the Passes and pick your month.   

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