The Concierge Rail Travel Planning Service

A core reason for providing ShowMeTheJourney was to make it easier to travel in Europe by train, but as you may have noticed while buzzing over the pages and pages of information that have been put together, some journeys are more complicated than others.

Choices of routes, trains, booking agents can make it tricky to hone in on the optimum departures and tickets, or rail passes, for the rail journey(s) that you're considering.

Our bespoke journey guides can help, but they can't cover every route, hence the provision of a personalised journey planning service for train travel within and to/from:
Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czechia/Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and The Netherlands.

There's a multitude of scenarios in which we can use the experience of travelling to more than 200 destinations across Europe by train, to help you have the optimum trip.
They include, but are not limited to:

• The ideal train to take from A to B (and on to C, D, E, F....) whether you want to save money, arrive or leave at a certain time, travel by day or by night.
• A recommended ticket agent, when there's an obvious advantage to booking with a particular service
• Comparing whether a rail pass or tickets will be a money saver.
• Suggestions of destinations that you can reach by train, which meet your travel criteria.
• If you just need to know whether the trip you have in mind is even possible.
• Comparisons between taking a day train and an overnight train, and whether an overnight route is an option.

Here's how we can make that happen:

1. Send an email to simon@showmethejourney.com which includes what you want to do, where you want to go and how you want to get there.
   Include info such as

• dates,
• preferred travel times,
• preferences for day or night trains,
• if you'd consider 1st class,
• the addresses of the start and end points of journey,
• whether you will only consider taking direct trains,
• if you'd rather take a scenic route.

2. Once we have the info we'll assess how to best to help you which could be writing up an itinerary, having a consultation on Zoom, or an email conversation.
   We'll assess how much time we'll be required to compile the info and produce an estimate of the cost of doing so.
   The rates are:
   Something which will take less than 10mins = no charge, we'll just give you the answer you seek as soon as we can.

• 10 - 30mins = £40
• 30 - 45mins = £60
• 45 - 60 mins = £75
• more than 60 mins = £75 plus £20 for each additional block of 15mins.

3. We'll tell you the estimate of the total cost and ask you to pay a deposit of 40%
4. On receipt of payment we'll work on the full answer or arrange the consultation, based around whatever works for you.
5. You'll then have your optimum travel plan to ensure you are able to experience the optimum trip.
6. We'll then ask you for the balance of payment, which may be less than the estimate.
7. Everyone's happy.

In most instances we won't be able to produce the requested bespoke travel plans until departure times have been confirmed and tickets have been released for sale.
And in may countries the booking windows for tickets can be shorter than you might suppose.

The usual ticket booking windows are:

• Poland =1 month ahead
• Czechia/The Czech Republic and Denmark and Hungary and Switzerland = up to 2 months ahead
• Norway = 12 - 13 weeks ahead
• Great Britain = up to 3 months ahead
• Spain = 3 - 6 months ahead (depends on route)
• France = up to 4 months ahead
• Italy = up to 4 months ahead
• Austria and Germany and Sweden = up to 6 months ahead

What's good to know about the European rail timetables is that they have two primary updates per year, which take affect annually on the second Sunday in December and the second Sunday in June.
The December change is the major update which pretty much sets out what routes, services and journey options will be available over the following year.
The June update has declined in importance as many operators now operate additional 'summer' services between April and October.

Why you need to know this is that tickets can't be placed on sale until the new schedules are confirmed, so in September and October the booking windows can be shorter than usual.
It often isn't possible to look up or book journeys for travel after the second Sunday in December, until late October or early November.

ShowMeTheJourney isn't a booking or travel agent, so you can your recommendations to book the ticket, but you will have to place your orders on the online ticketing services.
Though we aim to give you as much assistance with that as you require.

Sorry, but we all need some rules to abide by, and by the act of contacting ShowMeTheJourney and asking for a travel plan or consultancy, you will be accepting the following:

1: Contact details supplied will be solely used for communication purposes in connection to the specific requested travel plan and will not be archived, used for any other marketing purposes or be made available to third parties.

2. Once a travel plan has been agreed, paid for and supplied it can only be amended by the purchaser of the plan by the payment for a revised plan, with any changes on a travel day charged at the rate for producing a plan.
   Any travel day which does not require amendment will not be-recharged.

3. Payment for the entire plan or any specific, particular travel day will not be refunded in the event of an intention to travel being cancelled by the purchaser of the plan.

4. The links to the third party companies who retail train tickets are supplied in good faith, but ShowMeTheJourney.com does not accept responsibility for an increase in ticket price in the interval in time between the link being provided to a customer and the commencement of the booking process.

5. ShowMeTheJourney.com will strive to ensure that the ticket booking links it supplies will provide the clients of its concierge service with the optimum ticket to undertake a requested journey, but it does not absolutely guarantee that the recommended ticket agent will be offering the cheapest possible price for a requested journey

6. ShowMeTheJourney recommends that all customers of the Concierge Service, who receive booking links, check the journey details that are being recommended, including travel dates and departure times, and confirm the ticket agents terms and conditions before proceeding with making a booking, as ShowMeTheJourney.com does not accept any liability for a ticket purchase not meeting the requirements of a client of the Concierge Service.

7. If a booking is made by the client of the Concierge Service based on the recommendation of ShowMeTheJourney.com, the fulfilment of that booking and the subsequent use of a ticket or rail pass, will be solely bound by the terms and conditions of the retailer of the ticket or rail pass. Therefore ShowMeTheJourney.com will have no obligation on how a ticket is dispatched, received or used in transit.

8. ShowMeTheJourney.com will not accept any responsibility or liability for the contract between a ticket retailer and train service operator.

9: The journey details provided by ShowMeTheJourney.com including both departure and arrival stations, departure and arrival times and the type of train used for a journey and the specific route a train will follow are supplied in good faith.
ShowMeTheJourney.com is not liable for any subsequent changes to train schedules and journey details, between the date of the Travel Plan being supplied to a client, and the travel dates on which the suggested journeys will be undertaken.
Though ShowMeTheJourney.com will endeavour to update provided travel plans, in the event of it being made aware of subsequent changes to schedules.

10: ShowMeTheJourney.com does not accept any liability should a delay to a train service, or a schedule change, result in a train ticket or reservation booked as consequence of ShowMeTheJourney.com's recommendation, being invalid or requiring an exchange.
Should a train delay or train delay or schedule change require a ticket to be re-booked or exchanged, the circumstances will be bound by the ticket agent's terms and conditions and its contract with a train service provider.
The ticket holder agrees that in those circumstances that they should make contact with the ticket agent and/or train service provider and not with ShowMeTheJourney.com.