Best Train Passes between Prague and Vienna

Go to the desktop version of this site and read Rick's general rail advice. A pass is probably not the best deal for the trip you described. Any other long distance jumps? Did you price online single tickets?

Hi!

Thank you for your reply! I actually found Rick's rail pass overview after I posted this. I will not have any other long distance travel except for the round trip between Prague and Vienna. I have to understand better what the rail pass covers or not because the price of booking rail pass x roundtrip ticket was basically the same...

jordy, I don't know, but I suspect your assumption that a rail pass would be valid for travel (on the metro, trams or buses) within either city, is incorrect. Someone will likely recommend some kind of local pass or card for public transport within the cities, but for the one long R/T ticket, you should check the advance purchase price, which may only be available within a certain window of time before the trip.

Note: The link in the original post doesn't go to a Czechia rail website, but rather to a jewelry sales page (cubic zirconia, I guess).

We're talking about the holiday season and are only 6-7 weeks out, so it's not surprising that I'm mostly seeing what seem to be full-fare tickets on the ÖBB website. The roundtrip looks like it's about €130 per person. (There may well be discounts for children.) That's less than the 4-day pass price of $164 per adult, much less the 5-day pass price of $184. I think those prices include the currently offered 20% discount on passes. They do not include the shipping charge, which seems to be $18. I got the pass prices from the RailEurope website.

If you're in a position to act immediately, you might snag a discounted ticket for one of the two legs of your journey. I see that the 8:58 AM departure on December 28 still has Sparscheine tickets available at €29 each. The 4:58 PM departure is even less expensive. But probably not for long.

There is no ".com" in the URL. The English language site is https://www.cd.cz/en/

Looking at Dec 27 Prague to Vienna, direct Railjet at 8:51 am is 760 CZK ($35 US) and 498 CZK ($23 US) for the 10:51, 12:51, and 14:51 departures. Those are advance purchase fares if you buy now. Return should be similar.

It will be hard to find a rail pass that beats those prices.

The walk-up price is 1074 CZK ($49 US).

Thanks for checking the Czech site, Sam. I got my prices from the Austrian side. That's quite a difference!

Rail passes do not cover most in-city buses, trams, and subways. The S-Bahn (not U-Bahn) system that runs to the suburbs in Vienna, Innsbruck, and German cities are an exception to that rule, but they are also cheap tickets to buy locally, not usually worth adding days to a rail pass, and also not going to be your most common transport choice for in-city sightseeing.