Fare prices on trains

There's no single site that will give you the best prices on all European train routes - you need to go to different sites for different countries. This page has all the information you need: http://seat61.com/Europe-train-tickets.htm

Tickets usually become available 90 days or so in advance - so for your trip in July, you have to wait until April to book. In countries that offer advance fares at all (some don't, so there's no benefit to booking in advance at all), you generally do get the best available fares by booking as far in advance as possible. European train fares don't bounce up and down at random like plane fares can.

Bahn.de is s great site for finding schedules, but it will only show prices for tickets they sell (an arrival to, or departure from, a Getman station.

National rail sites will sell tickets. Trenitalia (Italy) has a 120 day window, others usually 90 days. Cheapest tickets allow no changes, so be sure you can commit. Mid-price allows some changes, perhaps for a fee. Full price tickets have the most flexibility.

Deutsche Bahn is the best schedule site for planning your trip.

To get an overview of regular (full, 2nd-class) fares, see our maps at https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/transportation/trains/cost-maps. Advance-purchase discounts can be significant when booked 2 - 3 months in advance through each country's own web site, and occasionally those savings are also available through other agents. (Rail Europe has some of these, which you may have seen for France, but they don't have the Spanish discounts; $130 is the full fare for Barcelona-Madrid.) Yes, fares will be cheapest when tickets are first released for sale, and limited seats at those prices, so they can sell out quickly, then the next limited offering will be at a mid-price that is still lower than full fare. See also https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/transportation/trains/buying-tickets.

Michael - Check out this website

http://www.seat61.com/

This guy has wonderful advice about train travel in general, including purchasing tickets.

Here are a couple of the specific pages that you would find from the overall page above:

http://www.seat61.com/Europe-train-travel.htm

http://www.seat61.com/Europe-train-tickets.htm

As noted by others, 90 days out seems to be the common train booking limit. The national rail agencies seem to offer the best fare alternatives such as senior/pensioner pricing, advance purchase fares etc. E.g check OBB in Austria, NB in Norway, VR in Finland.

michael,

A few points to mention......

The Deutsche Bahn website is absolutely one of the best sites to research train journeys anywhere in Europe. It doesn't return prices as you're probably looking for trips originating outside Germany.

I'd suggest not using Rail Europe as they may not show as much information as DB, and the prices may be higher. They're just a travel agency and don't actually operate any trains.

As the others have mentioned, one of the best places to buy tickets are the national rail websites in the various countries (ie: Trenitalia or Italo in Italy, DB in Germany, SBB in Switzerland and ÖBB in Austria). There are also a few private websites such as www.captaintrain.com which sell tickets at the same price as the rail networks, but only for some countries. At the moment, they sell tickets for France, Germany, Italy and I believe the Benelux countries.

It would be easier to offer more detailed information if you could list the journeys you'll be making.

Hi,

There is one website showing its fare schedule for its routes, just hop on, no mandatory reservations needed, pay on the train, super nice trains, max flexibility, cheaper than the national rail. Use it in combination with the bus company, it's about as cheap as it gets. This is in Austria, the train company is Westbahn. If you decide on a day trip on a whim in Austria, go with Westbahn if possible, save the Pass day for a longer ride or a night train. Going with its bus affiliate will start at 9 Euro.

What you may find in July/August having the cheapest rates relative to the rest of the year are the hotel rates, esp in Germany and Austria, since they are regarded as the low season months unlike in the US as peak season months.