My wife & I will be travelling in five countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria) in March and April. One option for rail travel is a five-country/8-days-in-two-months Eurail Saver Pass (over $1,300). Our eight days of travel consist of: (1) Ghent to Paris, (2) Paris to Strasbourg, (3) Strasbourg to Freiburg, (4) Freiburg to St Gallen, (5) St Gallen to St Anton, (6) St Anton to Salzburg, (7) Salzburg to Graz, (8) Graz to Vienna. After doing some research on individual train fares, it appears that the Eurail Pass is way more expensive than simply buying each ticket individually. Am I correct?
Posted by
Northamptonshire, England
33757 posts
Well, like the other poster I will leave it to you or somebody else to generate the numbers and equate your savings or not.
Howsumever, I will mention that in addition to the starting costs of $81.25 per person per day (the $1300 is for 2 folks right?) there are problems on days 1,2, and 3 at least.
Problem on day 1: You will be using the local Belgian train, very very cheap, between Gent and Brussel Zuid. Then the Thalys high speed train between Brussel and Paris Gare du Nord. Big problem with a railpass is that they are not accepted on Thalys. You can buy a passholder "discounted" ticket upon presentation of your railpass when you buy your Thalys ticket. That passholder is more expensive than a normal ticket bought a little in advance. So that day your $81.25 has saved you only the very small few euro local ticket from Gent to Brussel. There is a bit of a way around, by taking a local train to Lille in France and then the TGV to Paris from Lille. Not quite a slam dunk because of the problems with passholders on TGVs. See Day 2.
Problem on day 2: The extremely fast and quick 2 hour and 20 minute TGV between Paris Gare de l'Est to Strasbourg is difficult for passholders. SNCF, the French rail system which runs the TGV makes it difficult because they strictly limit the number of seat reservations available to passholders. While the passes are accepted for travel on the system, the TGVs are all reservation only. To ride on TGVs you must have a mandatory reservation which is included in tickets, whether discount or full price. Passholders have to buy passholder reservations, if any are available because they are strictly controlled and some trains have none available. You may turn up and find that the only way to get to Strasbourg is to buy a full priced ticket or wait until one goes that you can buy a seat reservation on. Same applies if you try the Lille - Paris end-run on day 1.
Problem on day 3: If you mean Freiburg in Breisgau in the Black Forest, what the $81.25 gets you is a short 6 stop ride on the little tiny local train to Offenburg - only 2nd class available if you have sprung for a first class pass - and then one stop on a fast train or 9 stops on the slow train to Freiburg. Total walk-up fare, €20 on the slow combo which takes all together 1:33 including change time or €28.10 on the fast train which is 23 minutes faster.
hmmm?
Posted by
1 posts
Hi,
I recently found myself in the same situation. We are going to Europe soon, and I thought Eurail was the way to go, until I did a little look at individual tickets, and for us, that worked out way better. We saved about 50% by booking individually.
If you want to have a look, we did a case study on it with a breakdown of expenses. eurail case study
Posted by
San Jose, CA
1994 posts
Please pay close attention to what Nigel said about using a pass in France. I bought a pass a few years ago because it was cheaper than buying individual tickets… until I found that I had to pay full fare and leave pass segments unused because there were no reservations available in France for pass holders on my route.
If you do decide to use a pass in France, make your reservations as early as possible, although you lose flexibility.
Posted by
Vienna, Austria
5493 posts
Do not buy a rail pass.
St. Anton to Salzburg: 19 Euro from oebb.at
Salzburg to Graz: 19 Euro from oebb.at
Graz to Vienna: 9 Euro from oebb.at
Note that these are all SparSchiene fares which means that you will be buying a ticket for a specific train.
Buying on the day at the station will be approximately 2 - 2.5X the price listed above, but still a bargain compared to the pass.