"We bought several tickets from this company for French holiday. Rail strikes prevented us travelling. We returned tickets duly cancelled by French rail to raileurope as instructed. Still waiting for a refund 3 months later
Avoid this company at all costs. Terry and lynne"

"WHY IS RAILEUROPE STILL AROUND???
I am sitting on the train at this very minute. I realize I've been scammed.
I bought my tickets (to and from a city within Europe) 2 weeks ago for 300$. I followed instructions and printed out my ticket, got on the train, only to be told by the ticket agent man, that it was not a ticket it was a reservation. He has patiently allowed me to try multiple things to get my ticket printed.
Here's what I've tried:
-I downloaded the app, which does not recognize my booking number that I received by email.
-I got on the phone with the help line/customer contact number, and it said the waiting expected was over an hour.
-I waited 30min on the line, before I was cut off because I was traveling through the countryside.
-I called back, left my phone number and explained the situation (they suggest doing this). No one has called back.
-I got on the 'chat function' online, on their website, it doesn't connect you to anyone.
-I wrote emails to their customer service, no response as of yet (2 hours into the ride).
-I have read the reviews online (68 of them), and realized I've been scammed. I had thought it was the official train system website, but realize it wasn't. I see that so many others have the same experience as I have. Why is this website still around? I wish I'd read the reviews before.

I feel very sorry for anyone in the future that gets scammed by these people. What a terrible thing. :( Please beware.

"

"Bought 3 first class train tickets for travel in Europe. Needed to ask a question. Sent them an email and got no response. Waited "on hold for 3 hours over two separate calls during their advertised open office hours. Finally reached an agent to answer my question. Would NEVER use them again.
STAY AWAY!!!!"

"After I purchased 2 tickets from Berlin to Prague I have noticed that I made a mistake at the booking date, I immediately got in touch with there customer servic and asked them to cancel my purchase in order to rebooking at the correct date, they charged me 20 EUR for canceling 2 minutes after booking! "

"Google Reviews of Rail Europe - don't just take my word on it. You would not think you need due diligence when booking a train ticket - think again! It is nothing like taking Amtrak in America. There is not ONE train system. I mistakenly thought Rail Europe was like the Amtrak of America. Amtrak is the company providing the service. Rail Europe of nothing but sleezy brokers - scam artists in my opinion with a flashy website.

I have been traveling internationally for business and pleasure for the last 25 years. I pride myself on being well versed on the ins and outs of travel. My travel has been by air. When it came time to book train service through Europe I thought, I would go to an expert. I also thought, be prepared and book my tickets in advance. WRONG, book when you get to Europe, DIRECTLY, with the rail system for each country. I thought I was dealing with the European rail system directly when I was booking with Rail Europe. WRONG. They are brokers!! And the worst ever. Stupid American! I was hoodwinked, and by searching reviews, apparently, this is their companies M.O. based on the number of horrible reviews. While in Europe trying to get help with my tickets in Europe (multiple concierges at 5 star hotels) they laughed when I mentioned Rail Europe "no, no, no you book with trains for each country directly, Rail Europe is no good." Reaching Rail Europe help in the US is hard, if not impossible. And if you do reach them......it's essentially, did you read the fine print (aka - you are screwed).

In the event you are reading this review after you were duped as well, I am sharing the contract information below I found. Write to them and make them honor their pledge they put in writing - which is just currently lip service on a website.

Zine Belhonchet
CEO & President at Rail Europe, Inc.
****@****
Corporate Headquarters
44 South Broadway
White Plains, New York 10601
Phone: ***-***-****

RAIL EUROPE - Our Pledge (EMPTY PROMISES)
https://www.raileurope.com/about-us/our-company.html

We are all ambassadors for the real Europe which is discovered uniquely through train travel.

We take pride in our company's European heritage and are passionate about sharing our experiences, cultures, and insights. We develop our expertise and knowledge in order to provide North American travelers with an authentic European experience.

We believe the spirit of train travel is about enjoying simple pleasures, respecting the environment and connecting to people, places and cultures. It is the ease with which Rail Europe brings these together that creates a rewarding experience for both our customers and ourselves.

We value always doing the right thing - being environmentally conscious, trustworthy and accessible to our customers and to each other.

As trains do, we at Rail Europe continually move ahead. We strive to progress, innovate, and be outstanding in all that we do.

"

"Do not use them as you will get nothing but trouble, trying to get a refund is almost impossible as they make up their own rules to avoid it even though the actual rail ticket conditions say you can get a refund or partial refund.
They are nothing more than liars and scammers, you have been warned!
Bypass them and go direct to the rail companies and book direct."

"Negative subzero is good for them as a review. Raileurope is a super SCAM, HOAX, CHEATER and SELFISH. They had ruined our first ever family holiday. We have set our flight connections, lay over, train connection and bought everything online and thinking all set. All the ticket we bought from other online sites were perfect and faced no problem. Except to this hoax/fraud site: raileurope.com it will make you seem real by accessing the site from your country of residence and by tieing up local operational ticketing company. July 12, 2017, I purchased train ticket from Gare de Lyon Paris to Turin Italy for 4person (2aduly, 2kids/ 6&7) price for 304euros including taxes etc. after the payment was processed I am waiting for the ticket on my email since I have selected: "print at home" so I could have everything in file before we live. Until 5 pm still not come and we leave for the airport as our flight time is 830pm, still not. No good answer on their representative who is holding us on calls. Until we reach Paris and we badly needed the train ticket to transfer to Turin Italy since our airplane ticket was issued from Italy back home. From the day we reach Paris, this issue was bugging me and it really ruined our days, we wasted our time having a queue for 2 whole days in Gare de Lyon SNCF office for tracing the tickets but in vain. Raileurope is a hoax, no real offices, simply operating via internet to do their fraudulent action. The same day of ticket purchased 12July2017, our bank confirmed that the merchant was raileurope.com We already complained to our bank and planning to file a legal complaint against this website- the underground mafia stealing the money of people. My strict suggestion to all the people in the world: check the review of the website before you buy anything even small amount. NEVER EVER OPEN NOR SEE THE SITE: raileurope.com NEVER EVER SO wont face problem and no bad feelings and no to ruin holidays. rail Europe is a sucked! YES, YES, YES to shutdown their website"

"Bought tickets online through them, under advice from a travel site. We lost the tickets before use, and were forced to purchase them again, which we did in Europe at the stations (which was no problem with availability). The total that RailEurope charged was $1500; the total we spent at the actual train stations, for the SAME TICKETS, was $566.71. You absolutely do not need to buy tickets in advance for regular trains (might be different for high-speed trains). My tickets were from Berlin-Prague-Vienna-Budapest."

"Do not use this "company". I warn you they are dodgy. They took my money, did not book anything with Thalys from Paris to Amsterdam. I was informed when I got to the train station and was told I had to buy a new set of tickets as mine were not valid. They were double the price! Of course when I go to Rail Europe, they don't want to know about it. Scam scam scam!!!!"

"On May 4th, 2016, I made multiple bookings online, both outbound and inbound. However, since the outbound booking was denied despite clearly advertised availability after the inbound booking was confirmed (I received a call telling me the seats booked were not available and they tried to upsell me to First Class tickets), I was left with return segments that I have no outbound trips to. I requested a refund mere minutes after receiving notice of this, but RailEurope was unwilling to provide a full refund (they only offered a partial refund). It is ridiculous for rates to be falsely advertised, as well as for RailEurope to not be willing to offer full refunds for inbound fares that were clearly booked in conjunction with a denied outbound booking."

"Avoid Rail Europe like the plague that it is!...Paid $1350.00 for a party of 4 for a round trip ticket from Salzburg to Vienna..We were assured of a particular type of seating arrangement with a table and "gratuities"..What we got were the typical 2 seats one in front of the other with, of course, no table..The "gratuities were 1 small bag of 5 ,yes 5, pretzels..When we arrived in Vienna, I asked a customer service rep about the seating and "gratuities" and was told, "It's not my problem"..To make this disaster even worse, I then asked for the price for a first class ticket for 4 from Salzburg to Vienna, and was quoted about $500.00 less that we paid..I filed a claim with Rail Europe, and after 2 months and numerous requests for a response, I was told what amounted to another"It's not our problem" and offered a $100 voucher for future..I e-mailed them and told them to keep it, as I would NEVER use Rail Europe, again..."

"I bought a 2nd class railpass and a train ticket from the Raileurope before the start of my journey but mistakenly bought a 1st class ticket. I went to Raileurope office and informed them of the error. The staff there told me that the ticket was invalid, and that I needed to buy another ticket and then to request for refund of the the first ticket. I thus bought another ticket from Raileurope, returned the the first ticket and asked for refund (and this request was made at least a week before the start of my journey to Europe. But a few days later,Rraileurope told me that there would not be a refund because I bought the first ticket by mistake. That answer was really unacceptable. If my initial ticket was invalid, this would mean that I paid for nothing. Raileurope ignored my request and even ignored my response that I would tell other travelers about my experience in this case. "

"I booked a ticket on a German Railroad through Rail Europe. Their website is very good and useful. However, when I was en-route to Europe, a Austrian friend warned me that the german railroad was canceling routes to Austria. I called RE and they confirmed the cancellation. They refunded part of my ticket purchase but said I would have to file a web request for the rest. After I returned, I filed the request. They said they needed to confirm with the German railroad that my rail connection was indeed canceled. After I filed, about three or four days wen by and they confirmed the cancellation. They then refunded the balance of the ticket EXCEPT for their $7.95 service fee. Out of principal, I again requested the full refund. Miriam responded that I had used their web site so it would not be refunded!

What kind of Mickey Mouse (sorry Walt) business are they running?
"

"Its my first time ever writing a review about anything, but this time I felt I must do service for others who might fall into this trap: While this company provides acceptable online service for ordering and buying train tickets in Europe - please take into consideration that they have ZERO customer service (although they send you an email saying that "it is our goal to provide excellent customer service". What a joke!!!! Try making a change, or getting a refund / coupon (if you made the mistake and purchased from them "travel protection plan"....).
It took me 3 hours of my life to run after them, beg, cry and finally I got an email saying that I'll get the coupon by email in 2-3 weeks....
I wish I could sue them and cause them bankruptcy. I've never in my 54 years encountered any service (or non service) like this.
I'll continue buying from them just because that as a Canadian, I have no other options. And I hate it!!!"

"When my husband and I were planning our first trip to Europe, we wanted to travel by train to get from country to country. Rail Europe had the most user-friendly website, and without independent knowledge of how to coordinate trains between countries, we assumed Rail Europe would be a good place to use.

We were absolutely wrong. After our purchase, everything seemed ok--we were able to print tickets for England and France at home, and it simply said that when we arrived in Italy we would need to enter our confirmation code to print tickets at the stations. It seemed simple enough. However, when we arrived in Italy, we discovered that all trains were Trenitalia, and that the confirmation codes issued through Rail Europe were invalid. When we first had the problem, we waited in a long line and nearly missed our train to talk to Trenitalia staff. Multiple staff members became involved in our case, and none could figure out the problem or how to use our confirmation codes from Rail Europe. Despite their best intentions and trying to be helpful, the best they could offer was to sell us a new ticket and ask for a refund from Rail Europe.

We boarded our first train with the instructions from Trenitalia staff to explain the situation and buy a ticket from the conductor when he came by. He never came, so we did not have an issue on this ride. However, in the meantime, we emailed Rail Europe for advice. It was a kind email. When they responded (which was not immediate, so we had to deal with this issue again before we heard from them), they evidently did not read our initial email. We clarified that we did not need a refund, but that the Trenitialia staff didn't know what to do with us except tell us to contact Rail Europe and perhaps get a refund and re-purchase tickets in Italy. Rail Europe denied us a refund we did not ask for. They also blamed us for nearly missing our train, stating that because we booked the first and second legs ourselves, the 25 minute layover was insufficient so it was our fault. They completely ignored the fact that we could not GET our tickets. They also booked us various trips with multiple legs with much less than 25 min layovers.

I was infuriated to receive their response, which not only did not address our concern or offer any solutions, but in fact blamed us for the problem. I responded stating that their response was completely unacceptable and stated that they needed to respond to me urgently, as all the remaining tickets we had were booked in Italy through Rail Europe. They never responded again. My husband and I wasted valuable travel time getting to every Trenitalia station early to see if anyone there might be able to help us. No one could figure it out. As a result, we rode trains with only receipt/confirmations, but not actual tickets, worrying the whole time that we would be fined for something we could not control. The stress and time this took was ridiculous.

Finally, the very last station had a man who figured out how to issue our tickets. Unfortunately, his English was not great so we do not know what he did to make the confirmation codes work. We had to handle the entire thing on our own. I NEVER heard back from Rail Europe, despite various emails including stating that I was completely disappointed and would ensure that review sites heard about their unprofessional, unacceptable practices.

So, buyer beware. Book through Trenitalia directly if traveling in Europe. Someone should penalize Rail Europe for taking money from consumers and not providing the service/ticket that they say they are. I hope someone may read this and it may save you the stress, anxiety, and time that we had to spend trying to resolve it. "