Using Dauer-Spezial-Tickets in Germany

Another question that is sometimes asked is, "What happens if I miss a connection due to a late train?" The Dauer-Spezial-Tickets is for specific trains as listed on the ticket, and if you miss the train for a non-Bahn caused reason, you can't use the tickets on later trains. However, for a Bahn caused problem, you can still use the ticket on a later train. This happened to me at Northeim. I had six minutes to make my connection and the train was eight minutes late. The conductor announced that the southbound IC (my train) had not waited. I didn't know if there would be a manned ticket counter in Northeim, so I stayed on the regional train to the larger town of Göttingen, which was on my route anyway. The man at the ticket counter checked with his computer that the first train was indeed late, stamped my ticket as such, and assigned me to the next train out to Karlsruhe.

BTW, total cost of tickets for these two days was about $84 with exchange rate charges. If I had tried to purchase them from Rail Europe, I could only have bought Cochem to Bad Harzburg and Göttingen to Karlsruhe for the second day and would have had to buy the Walkenried-Göttingen ticket extra. What I could have gotten from RE would have cost me $387 (plus shipping?). It pays to use the Bahn for tickets if you can.

Great info Lee! We used Dauer Spezial tickets this summer for our first trip in Germany and they were wonderful! Concur with Lee on the savings. They were tremendous. Sure, you give up some flexibility, so might not work for all, but for our first trip to Europe, having a bit of a set schedule was good.

One thing you will definitely need for the train is the credit card you used to purchase the ticket with. I wondered if they would enforce that, and they did! They scan your credit card and your ticket. Since ours matched it was not a problem, so don't know what they do if they don't!

don't know what they do if they don't!

I almost found out. I got a Bahn logon close to 10 years ago, just for access to information. At the time, I used a nickname. So when I bought the Bahn tickets, it sent me a pdf file using my nickname, which is not the name on my credit card. I called the Bahn and explained the problem, and he said he couldn't do anything about it. While I was on the phone with him, I changed my Bahn registration to my legal name. No sooner had I hung up, than I had new pdf files emailed to me with the corrected name. I don't know if he did it, or if changing my name on the registration did it.

I called my bank and they said that they could have issued me a "replacement" credit card, with the same number and my nickname, so that would have worked too.

So, anyway, if you have a current Bahn registration, make SURE the name matches your credit card before buying Dauer-Spezial tickets.

don't know what they do if they don't!

According to the "terms and conditions for internet tickets" (Tfv 600/I) the printout without the card of the transaction is not a "valid ticket".

If you ride a train without a valid ticket you'll have to buy a ticket according to the "increased fare" according to the EVO article 12.
Which means twice the normal/standard fare.

But since you would've owned a valid ticket without carrying it, you would've one week to proof that at a station. In that case the "increased fare" would be reduced to an "administrative fee" of seven euro.

Rules. We have them.

Rules. We have them.

Not so fast. Yes, you have rules. However, sometime (as here) rules as not well written to cover all situations. Additionally, there might be a difference between the rules, as written, and what is actually enforced.

As I read the Beförderungsbedingungen (Conditions of Carriage), it is not explicitly stated that the name on the credit card be the same as the name on the ticket, only that the credit card used for ID be the same one as used for the booking, and since they did not ask me at the time of booking for the name on the credit card, how can they require it? The credit card number on the ticket, and the number on my credit card did match.

So, although the rules only say that the credit card used as identification must be the same one used for booking, and it was, and they did not ask for the name on the credit card at the time of booking, "by the rules" the name on the credit card and the name on the ticket don't have to match. However, they might not play by the rules. When I called DB and asked them, they said the names had to match.

So, the man on the phone obviously either didn't know the rules or didn't know how to apply them. What about the conductor. According to the rules, he should have accepted the card number as ID. But would he have?

So, the question of what would they actually do is a valid one.