OEBB English-speaking customer service

OEBB English-speaking customer service

Forget it.

Did you select your seats using the floor plan of the car? If not, bad luck. There is an arcane algorithm assigning seats. If you cannot stand your assigned seats (for less than three hours) you may:
(1) Take the windows seats next to your assigned seats. If nobody else is claiming these seats you are fine. If somebody has a reservation for the windows seats you can try negotiating for swapping the seats.
(2) If you want a 100%-proof solution, just buy three new seat reservations matching your requirements. (Seat reservations and train tickets are separate items.)

Seat reservations are never refunded. Changing or cancelling tickets depends on the type of ticket, some of them are not changeable and not refundable. If you have your tickets already in printed form, you need to go to a ticket counter in a major train station for any change or cancellation request. Pretty cumbersome as filling in of some forms is required.

Therefore my advice: After having purchased train tickets online do NOT download them as pdf file. You will get an email with a link for downloading the tickets later. Do this in the very last moment. As long as you have not downloaded the tickets they are not in your possession yet, and you may try an online cancellation or change which is much easier (if allowed).

Thanks wmt1 for your comprehensive reply. The thought had occurred to me to reserve extra seats to guarantee a forward facing seat (my wife gets extremely nauseous if she's not facing forward). One follow up question, if I may:

"(2) If you want a 100%-proof solution, just buy three new seat reservations matching your requirements. (Seat reservations and train tickets are separate items.)"

If there is an arcane algorithm in play, how then would you recommend I buy additional seats if I run the same "algorithmic" risk with the purchase of these extra seats? One more question - Is there a recommended strategy for getting these hopefully unreserved window seats - as in getting to platform early, etc." Thank you again. Wonderful reply.

The risk of getting not exactly the seats you wanted exists only if you let the booking systen select the seats. If you select the seats yourself from the seat layout of the car - which is presented to you on your request -, then you get exactly what you want. You can even select the car of your liking, e.g. seats in a quiet zone or seats not near the children's area. This is true for all RailJet trains operated between Munich, Vienna and Budapest (and elsewhere).

The risk of getting not exactly the seats you wanted exists only if you let the booking systen select the seats. If you select the seats yourself from the seat layout....<< That's what I did and was very careful. I selected seats from the schematic, but when I went to print out pdf, the seats given on the ticket (two are in "gang" which I presume means aisle) did not match what I had selected (two window and one middle seat) from the schematic. I called OEBB and the intro recording is in German and I'm not sure which option to select, if there is any option from which to choose. Thanks again for replying and investing time in this issue.

Your mention of a "middle seat" seems to suggest that you travelling on an EC train with old fashioned compartments. On open plan coaches there are no "middle seats". With compartment coaches the aisle seats are considered windows seat as well.

You will see that if you compare the numbering plans of compartment coaches with open plan coaches

In a compartment coach you have window- aisle -11/12 -13/14 - 15/16 - window
In an open plan coach they add seats 17/18 and then you have window - 11/12 - 13/18 - aisle - 17/14 - 15/16 window.

The booking system is not always aware of the exact car layout, so it is probably programmed to treat seats 11/12 and 15/16 as window seats. And yes, form the aisle seat in a compartment coach you can look outside too.

There is not much you can do. You cannot modify a reservation. And a reservation is separate from your ticket. This is train travel, so not like air travel. You have a ticket for the Munich to Budapest route, and a reservation for two separate trains.

I would not worry to much about it. You are not glued to your seat. The train is probably not going to be full (trains do not need to be full to be profitable, like aircraft) and you can thus move to another free seat if you want. There is also usually no way to guarantee a forward facing seats as Europeans typically do not care about that thing, and it is even quite common for trains to reverse during their run.

Thank you very much for your reply, WengenK. It's full of useful information. The forward facing is a problem in our case as my wife gets nauseous to the point of throwing up riding backwards. We didn't know before we started planning that all seats were not facing forward in the direction of the train.

Having all seats facing forward in a train would be difficult. Trains are designed to run in both directions, as you need to have them go back and forth between places. And trains will even reverse en route. So trains typically have half the seats facing one way, and half the other. And people typically do not care. Do you have a lot of experience traveling by train? Has your wife actually once gotten nauseous by traveling sitting backwards on a train?

I am asking because for some reason that is something that very few people suffer from, and mostly only people from the US...

A train moves very different from a car or a coach, so you cannot make assumptions based on getting motion sick in other vehicles. I get terrible motion sick in a car for example, unless I am driving myself. But I don't care which way I sit in a train.

Makes sense, WengenK. I overlooked that part about reversing direction. She's serious and correct (she has anti-nausea wrist bands) in this self-assessment (and not given to histrionics or exaggeration), even though our European train experience is minimal, except when we were in our early twenties.

In that case just see how the train moves when you are on board, and then just move if needed to a forward facing seat. If you are in first class the car will probably not be full. You may have the whole compartment for yourself.

I didn't realize that we get a compartment (do we?). That would be nice, especially if we can store our luggage there. Thanks again, WengenK.

Well, I assume this, because you mentioned a "middle seat". You only have that in compartments. And I assume you have 1st class tickets then, right? What train, car and seat numbers do you have?

Yes, first class and middle seat chosen from schematic. Three seats - Mitte - 23; Gang - 21,22 - from Wien to Budapest (second leg of trip). I specifically selected two window seats and one middle seat from schematic, but instead received one middle seat and two aisle seats. Car 410. Departs Wien at at 1437 and arrives Keleti at 15:17 or 15:19. Departs Munich at 929, I believe. One transfer in Wien - 38 minutes to make connection at Wien.

Sorry, but the data you gave about your trip are not consistent and do not match the train schedule.

The train which leaves at 9:29 in Munich (RJX 63) goes directly to Budapest (arrival 16:19). It is a RailJet train having no compartments. There is no change in Vienna necessary.

A train leaving Vienna at 14:37 - as you wrote - cannot arrive in Budapest at 15:17. (This would be shorter than a flight.)

If you want us to understand and to sort things out, please tell us the travel date, the train number(s), and how (using which website) you did book the tickets.

I think OEBB may differ from DB. Not sure. There used to be a direct train on DB to Budapest leaving Munich around the same time, but the OEBB website has a transfer in Wien. I thought the schedule may have been updated on OEBB. Aug. 26 is the date of travel. Here's the OEBB link.https://shop.oebbtickets.at/en/ticket/timetable I agree about the Wien to Budapest link. It arrives at 1719. I was reading right off the the hard copy pdf ticket as to departure time.

So on 26 August both DB and OEBB agree that you change from the Railjet to a EuroCity train at Vienna (which applies every day in August). From Vagonweb we know that Car 410 between Vienna and Budapest is scheduled to be a 1st class compartment car- the leading car in the train.

So the 'aisle' seats are the seats beside the compartment door, with a view across the corridor to the windows on the other side of the train.

Thanks, isn31c. I re-checked the DB website and it has an updated schedule matching that of OEBB. On the DB website, there was a previously a direct train from Munich to Budapest leaving at about the same time (930) as the one I have referenced above, but I am presuming that the schedule has been updated. I can't buy seats for the first leg (Munich to Wien) of the trip from the DB site - not sure why. When I try and buy seats on DB, I get a message that "all seats are already booked" in the Munich to Wien leg of trip. After the error as to seat assignment on OEBB, I am reluctant to buy seats from that site. DB has excellent and prompt customer service that I may have to call. OEBB is much more cumbersome customer-service wise. The intro on its customer service line is in German and I did not know which option to select until WengenK advised me to just hang on for an operator and hope they speak English. Thanks for the info re: Car 410. From the schematic on the OEBB website from which I reserved the seats (I reserved seats 23, 25, 26 - I got 23, 22, and 21, but ticket did not give me those seats), it did appear to be the leading car.

The RJX 63 departing at 9:29 from Munich going to Budapest directly is not operated (for whatever reason) during August.
It is replaced by an RJX 63 departing at 9:30 going only to Vienna for the whole month of August.

On DB's website this train is marked as reservierungspflichtig (seat reservation obligatory). This means that you cannot buy a ticket without a seat reservation, the seat reservation is already included in the ticket. So you should have a seat reservation for the leg from Munich to Vienna.

This means that you cannot buy a ticket without a seat reservation, the seat reservation is already included in the ticket. So you should have a seat reservation for the leg from Munich to Vienna.<<

Thanks, wmt1. We have Eurail passes, so the "ticket/seat reservation along with ticket" pairing (if I understood you correctly) would not seem to be applicable in this instance, or would it? All we need to do is reserve seats which at this point we are unable to do. I may call DB to see if they can solve this problem. Thanks again.

Ok. Now that we know that you are traveling in Aug 26, and that you have an Eurail Pass I can give you some more advise.
(Note. It would have made it easier for us to help you if you had volunteered that information at the start...)

My advise: Stop worrying. Then once you are in Munich just go to the station, and get reservations. Or get them via the Eurail App.
This is mass transit. The probability of a train from Munich to Vienna already "sold out" now is zero. So if you cannot book seats that is just a technical issue, or the inventory has not been loaded yet. Most of the people you will share that train with on the 26 still have to buy their tickets...

And yes, technically seats 20 and 21 are window seats :-)

We have Eurail passes, ...

That was the key to the conundrum.

I always discourage purchasing Eurail passes as they are a rip-off. Eurail is targeting tourists not so familiar with train travel by making them believe that buying train tickets is some kind of rocket science. This was maybe true until about 30 years ago when you still needed a specialist from a ticket counter or a travel agency to book train tickets involving more than one country. Nowadays online booking is available everywhere.

In this case needing a Eurail reservation isn't the problem.

No one can actually buy a normal ticket on the Munich to Vienna Railjet on that date either due to the need to also have a seat reservation. Very, very good fares are being offered, even with a 15 Euro upgrade to first class being available on the cheapest 2nd class fares- a wonderful bargain.

But those fares can't be booked due to the need to reserve a seat, or I couldn't last night from the UK.

It is only possible to speculate on why that is- but it could be that OEBB have not yet determined if they are using 1st or 2nd (brand new) Railjet sets on that journey, so have not released seat inventory. A question which likely depends on the speed of delivery and commissioning of the new train sets.

Whether customer service can resolve the reservation conundrum, or whether they just say to wait (there are 2 months to go yet) you will need to find out. I would suspect the latter.

Thanks to everyone for your input and your efforts. Very much appreciated.

Keep this in mind: If getting on a train was complicated, they would not be popular, and we would not have trains every hour from Munich to Vienna.

A lot of the issues tourists experience with train travel here has to do with impatience. Most of the people that will travel from Munich to Vienna by train will not even have bought their tickets yet. Europeans usually do not book that far in advance, and so the railways not always take in to account that there are a few tourists that do. So you can get in all kind of weird issues when you give in to your seat anxiety and try to nail everything down two months in advance.

I am supposed to hear today if I have to be in Ingolstadt tomorrow. Guess when I will buy my train ticket...

Thanks again, WengenK. The OEBB website makes it complicated, notwithstanding what you have stated. Today, I tried to buy three additional seats and I was about to be charged for six seats (charged twice), rather than the three I had intended. You may be thinking "operator error," as is so often the case. In this instance it was not. Maybe I'm using the wrong website to reserve seats, or perhaps I am trying to book too early as you have suggested. Thanks again for all of your help. I have learned quite a lot about train travel from your (and that of others) posts.