Delay Compensation

What is a Contract of Carriage?

A Contract of Carriage is a contract between you and us (as an intermediary on behalf of the participating carriers operating the services concerned) to take you from point A to point B using the transport services within the Pass network.

The Rail Pass ticket that you have on your phone or hold in your hand together with a Seat Reservation (if one is required) is the embodiment of a Contract of Carriage. It is essential, however, to determine whether you are travelling under one Contract of Carriage or multiple Contracts of Carriage (see below).

In all cases, for a Contract of Carriage to be valid, you must follow the rules set out in the Conditions of Use. For example, if you have a mobile Pass, this means that both a travel day and journey must be activated prior to boarding.

One contract or multiple contracts of carriage?

Whether you are travelling under one Contract of Carriage or multiple Contracts of Carriage is determined by the type of journey that you are taking:

• If you take several successive train services, none of which require a Seat Reservation, you will be travelling under one Contract of Carriage (or through-ticket).
• If you take several successive train services, each of which require a Seat Reservation, each segment of that journey will constitute one Contract of Carriage. This means that you will be travelling under multiple Contracts of Carriage to go from your journey point of departure to your final destination.
• If each segment requires a Seat Reservation, but each service is operated by the same railway carrier, however, you will be travelling under one Contract of Carriage (or in other words, a through-ticket).

Why is this important to determine?

The purpose of understanding whether you are travelling under a single or multiple Contracts of Carriage is that it determines the extent of rights that you are entitled to under Regulation (EU) No 2021/782 on Rail Passengers’ Rights and Obligations.

What does this mean in practice?

If you travel under a single Contract of Carriage and miss a connection due to a delay or cancellation of an earlier service, you are entitled to these rights:

• Compensation, but only if you arrive at the final destination of your journey with a delay of at least 60 minutes.
• Assistance, free of charge, to help you reach your final destination, but only if your arrival at your final destination will be delayed by at least 60 minutes. The type of assistance you are entitled to includes continuation or re-routing, hotels or other accommodation (in case of missed last connection for the day), transportation to alternative departure point, etc.

If you travel under multiple Contracts of Carriage, each contract is treated in isolation. This means that if you miss a connection where there are multiple Contracts of Carriage involved, you are typically not entitled to any assistance to help you continue your journey. For example:

• If you take a train from Brussels to Paris (which requires a Seat Reservation) operated by one carrier and then change onto another train from Paris to Barcelona (which also requires a Seat Reservation) operated by another carrier, you would be travelling under two Contracts of Carriage.
• If the train under the first Contract of Carriage (Brussels to Paris) is delayed so that you miss the connection of the second Contract of Carriage (Paris to Barcelona), you are not entitled to any assistance to reach Barcelona as you are travelling under two separate Contracts of Carriage.
• You would also not be entitled to any compensation for your delay into Barcelona. Depending on the length of the delay into Paris, however, you may be entitled to compensation for that segment of the journey.

In other cases, you may benefit from the Agreement on Journey Continuation (see the below dropdown) to help you reach your destination, even if you are travelling under multiple Contracts of Carriage.

What should you do?

Plan your journey cautiously if one or more segments involves a train which requires a Seat Reservation, so that you have sufficient time to change trains. Keep in mind that some train stations are big and changing may take longer than expected.

You must also respect the official minimum change times shown in the Planner in our Rail Planner app or as announced by the railway carriers. Combining different segments at your own discretion where the minimum time is shorter than the officially published one may result in non-eligibility for compensations.

Version 2.0: July 2021

This privacy policy explains how your personal data is used and secured by Eurail B.V. (hereafter “Eurail”), supplied by you through the Delay Compensation form made available on our websites Eurail.com and Interrail.eu. 

What is personal data?

In accordance with the General Data Processing Regulation (GDPR) and Dutch Data Privacy legislation, personal data is considered any information that relates to an identified or identifiable living individual. Different pieces of information, which collected together can lead to the identification of a particular person, also constitute Personal data.

Processing of personal data
From the Delay Compensation form that you submit to us, we collect and process the following personal data – salutation (Mr. / Ms.), name, postal address, bank account number, IBAN and Swift / BIC code. Personal data is only collected and processed as necessary for providing our services as outlined in the Interrail Delay Compensation Policy. 

What is your information used for?

The personal data that we ask you to fill in the Delay Compensation form is used for settling your request for compensation arising out of train delays in accordance with the applicable conditions of use of the Pass. Collection and processing of this data is necessary for us to carry out the requested payment, as well as for accounting purposes.

How does Eurail protect your information?

To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and ensure the correct use of information, Eurail has put in place appropriate physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information Eurail collects. These include firewall encryption, transfer through secure network connections, limited digital and physical access on a need-to-know basis, and conclusion of data processing agreements with third-party data processors, such as digital payment providers and railway companies participating in the Eurail or Interrail Pass Products.

Does Eurail disclose any information to third parties?

Eurail does not sell and trade your personally identifiable data shared through the Delay Compensation Form. Eurail transmits your personal data, shared by you in relation to settling your compensation payment, to trusted third parties, who assist Eurail in carrying out the purposes described above, as long as those third parties agree to comply with this privacy policy. Furthermore, Eurail may also release your information when the release is due by law.

Retention and deletion of your personal data

In accordance with Section 3 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation), personal details will be kept for no longer than necessary.

Settling your compensation payment

Data collected from the Delay Compensation form and processed for the purpose of settling delay compensation payments and the related internal accounting is kept according to the periods prescribed by Dutch legislation, following which all copies of this data are irreversibly disposed of.

Your rights as an owner of the data

Upon your request, your personal data can be amended or erased, provided that this does not conflict with applicable laws. Requests for deletion of your personal data kept by us are handled within 30 days. Please note that erasure of your data may affect our performance of the requested service. Eurail waives all responsibility for rendering any requested services following a requested erasure of your data.

If you want to access, correct, block or erase your personal details, please contact us by mail at the following address: privacy@eurail.com adding “Delay Compensation Request (DCR) Data” to the email subject line. For any other questions or concerns, please contact our customer service team.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

Any changes and updates to this Privacy Policy will be published on this webpage. These changes, unless requiring your explicit consent, shall become applicable from the date of publication. While Eurail undertakes to inform you about major policy changes, it is your responsibility to periodically review this page.