Ok I searched and searched last night but couldn’t find the answer to this from any source I could trust. Even the Man in Seat 61 didn’t address the question (as far as anything I could find !). But I know plenty of our DB experts here will know. So Lee, Sam, Dave, etc. this question is for you please!
Is there any price advantage to be had on DB when buying a round trip ticket as opposed to two one-way tickets?
Thank you !!
Kim does your ticket route take you across regions or within one region? We are in Germany now and have some experience.
Buying a roundtrip ticket for German trains does not save you money versus buying two one-way tix. What does save money is buying train tix 90-120 days in advance of your journey. Deutsche Bahn releases a limited number of heavily discounted train tickets ( often 50 percent off) in advance . They are non-refundable so you need to be committed to your itinerary before buying them. Look for “Sparpreis” train tickets.
Another way to save is that DB allows you to buy a ticket to a destination and stop off at a city on the way at no extra charge. I did this buying a train ticket from Hamburg to Wismar with a stopover in Lubeck. This allows you to add intermediate cities as a daytrip before taking the train on to your next overnight destination.
Have a great Trip!
Hi Mona — oh definitely across regions. Across the whole country from France to Denmark in fact!!
Thank you, and thank you Kenko! I definitely want to take advantage of the stopover option. I couldn't find a way to program that in last night looking on the app on my phone, but feel I will find it easily today online. That is a GREAT tip.
Sure thing, Kim.
A teacher I had once said: “There is no such thing as a dumb question. The only dumb question is the one that’s never asked.”
Cheers!
Is there any price advantage to be had on DB when buying a round trip
ticket as opposed to two one-way tickets?
When you buy a return ticket, you are really buying two separate tickets, just saving a little time in the purchase process.
Just checked it out for a trip from Cologne Hbf to Frankfurt Hbf two weeks from today with an 8 am departure and a 6 pm return. I got the same price both ways. 35.90 EUR each way on the Sprinter, whether as two separate tickets or as one round trip.
But if you were leaving this Sunday, the same 8 am (8:23 actually) would be 43.90 EUR for the outbound and 35.90 EUR for the return two weeks from today.
Perfect, thank you so much Sam !
I am looking in July -- so it is a way out, but also peak summer travel time. So I can see some discounts are already gone (and one train I was thinking of taking is already sold out!), but there are still some remaining. So I need to make some decisions and purchases !
Thank you so much -- and thanks Kenko for your kind response.
I think on my way there I want to take advantage of making a hop for a day over to Heidelberg from Mannheim, where I have to go through anyway. I think a postcard from Heidelberg was the very first "piece of Europe" I ever received was from Heidelberg -- a girl in my tiny Oklahoma town had a German mother and had gone home to see family and sent that postcard with the beautiful view of the Altstadt.
In all these years of living in Europe, and in a few trips to Germany, I have never been. So I think I shall do so in July !!
Mona writes,
Kim does your ticket route take you across regions or within one
region?
Kim responds,
Hi Mona — oh definitely across regions. Across the whole country from France to Denmark in fact!!
Kim adds,
I think on my way there I want to take advantage of making a hop for a
day over to Heidelberg from Mannheim, where I have to go through
anyway.
On your way where? I think you need to clearly identify which specific journey(s) you are interested in taking. If it's really France > Heidelberg > Denmark, (Paris > Heidelberg > Copenhagen for example) and back to Paris, I would instead look at whatever discounts you can find with SNCF and/or Danish Railways first. I have no idea what those might be.
As for DB... although you might be traveling through Germany, or stopping over in Germany, you will probably find nothing cheap at all for a Paris > Copenhagen journey on just one ticket, whether one way or round trip. That international round trip should cost around €1100 plus at DB. (And I wonder why you want round trip for such a route - do you really want to stop off in Heidelberg on the way back to France?)
The discounted saver fares at DB are not likely available for mere "stopover" towns in Germany; they ARE widely available for journeys with starting points and final destinations in GERMANY. So you CAN check DB for options, but those should be options for individual journeys. So let's say Heidelberg is your only German destination on the way from Paris to Copenhagen... look at sample journeys on separate DB tickets - like the ones below:
For the trip back WITHOUT Heidelberg, you can find DB discounts once again if you break the trip into two tickets. Examine the route of your most favorable journey and pick a city that makes sense. For Copenhagen > Paris, for example, you would normally be routed via Hamburg and Cologne. So you might look for cheap DB tickets on journeys to Hamburg (probably on your most direct route) for your first leg.
(For travel on July 18, Copenhagen 05:18 – Paris 20:05)
These examples are all I can offer since the exact details of your journeys haven't been stated. But I'm hopeful they help clarify one possible strategy... think in terms of four one-way DB tickets rather than 2 one-ways or 1 round trip.
The other comments you've received about round-trips, regional travel, and saver fares all ring true for DB in general. But German Railways isn't exactly set up to handle your journeys (as I understand them anyway) in the way that you imagined. Maybe the French or the Danes will have something better.
You all helped so much on my recent Germany trip, as all this detailed info makes my head spin. But I did learn some simple things: trains are cheaper after 8:00am generally, and that our unexpected senior discount, via the app, was quite generous. For example, a 26 Euro trip became 17 Euros with the 65+ discount.
We traveled from Munich to Salzburg, Salzburg to Regensburg, Regensburg to Rothenburg, Rothenburg to Boppard, and Boppard to Frankfurt, and it looks like we spent about 250 Euros total for two senior people. I was happy with that, but some of you experts may have been able to do better. We also never got lost or missed a connection, which made the trip a success!
Thanks for all your help!
Russ, thanks so much for your in-depth and helpful response.
Indeed, I had caught the information from Man in Seat 61 about breaking up the segments once one had figured out what was involved. So I have been working that way -- which was in part why I got to wondering if I was taking some obviously round-trip-available discount by doing so.
I found that one of the routings that made the most sense was
Paris-Mannheim
Mannheim-Hamburg
Hamburg Copenhagen via Fredericia
Once I saw how close Heidelberg is to Mannheim, I thought, if I end up not taking the NightJet and am going to travel by day anyway, why not do:
Paris Est ==> Mannheim say in the afternoon.
then hop a local service from Mannheim to Heidelberg, spend afternoon/evening in Heidelberg just to break up the journey (and because as I understood it, I could get the local train to Heidelberg either included with my ticket or for a very small add-on).
Next morning, zip back the 15 minutes or whatever from Heidelberg back to Mannheim, then get a train
Mannheim ==> Hamburg.
then either move on Hamburg to Copenhagen that afternoon/evening, or stay overnight in Hamburg.
On the way back, I'm likely to be starting from somewhere elsewhere in Denmark than Copenhagen (i.e. from nearer to Hamburg). So I would look at the same process in reverse, although I think on the way home, I will just go all day on the trains (building in the Seat 61-recommended 30 minutes' minimum interval for transfers) to get back to Paris Est by 10 pm or so.
Another possible routing is the Thalys via Koeln, but I always assume Thalys is more expensive and worse service. But it's definitely something to look at.
And the other thing is to look for what pieces (for example RT Paris-Mannheim) I might get a discount if I purchase with my SNCF Advantage card.
So - lots to think about, and you've provided lots of good advice. Now I just have to make some decisions and compare some different ideas!!
Thank you again for all the time you went to to look at my issue.
Once I saw how close Heidelberg is to Mannheim, I thought, if I end up
not taking the NightJet and am going to travel by day anyway, why not
do: Paris Est ==> Mannheim say in the afternoon. then hop a local
service from Mannheim to Heidelberg, spend afternoon/evening in
Heidelberg just to break up the journey (and because as I understood
it, I could get the local train to Heidelberg either included with my
ticket or for a very small add-on).Next morning, zip back the 15 minutes or whatever from Heidelberg back
to Mannheim, then get a train Mannheim ==> Hamburg.then either move on Hamburg to Copenhagen that afternoon/evening, or
stay overnight in Hamburg.
Don't concern yourself with local tickets - the DB site automatically connects you to/from Heidelberg as long as you specify Heidelberg as your destination. You don't care about visiting Mannheim, so while you might pass through there, there's no reason to use Mannheim as a stopover or destination. Try a search for these journeys instead:
Outbound:
Ticket #1: Paris > Heidelberg
Ticket #2: Heidelberg > Copenhagen (with or without a scheduled overnight stopover in Hamburg.)
Be sure to play around with the times you enter. Use whatever hour sounds right initially, but then adjust the departure time from Heidelberg and the stopover time in Hamburg (if relevant) within a reasonable window to see if the prices improve. 18 hours? 20 hours? When you adjust the stopover time, you of course change the trains you will be on - so you may find some lesser-booked trains that are more reasonable.
Sample date 7/13: I found Heidelberg > Copenhagen direct for €70 - 80.
For the same date I found Heidelberg > Hamburg (20hr. stopover) > Copenhagen for €100 with reasonable (IMO) travel times.
And with an 18-hr stopover it was €95 - €100 for that same date.
("Results will vary according to input!!)
Return trip: I wouldn't make any prejudgments against the Thalys. If you wish to compare different routings in terms of travel ease and cost, you can specify the Thalys Route (Cologne) on one search and the "Karlsruhe" route on a different search. Just enter those cities as "stopovers" (even if you're maybe staying on the train there) with 00:00 stopover time.
Kim, Thalys.com has Paris to Koln ( Cologne) at a discount even for July. I put an arbitrary date of July 14 and there are tickets for €104. There also was a train departing Paris Nord for €40. There actually is a €40 train departing on many other days as well. So, Thalys is a definite possibility for saving some euros.
Also, Koln to Hamburg is only $19 if you take a 7am train. There are many tix available for Hamburg to København (Copenhagen) for $37 showing on www.TheTrainline.com. It’s an easy platform to use to do research on, although DB may have the ticket for a few euros less.
Cheers!
Wait, the DB trains sell out? I was thinking it was like buying a metro/subway ticket in a big US city. I am traveling with my mom and she sometimes has "bad days" due to health issues and we most likely won't want to take the train some days (we need to stay flexible). So I figured I would buy tickets the day of even if it means paying more. But if they sell out, I am not sure what to do. Is it just ICE trains that sell out or also the RE trains?
CAE - sorry, I didn't see your post.
The train I was referring to that had sold out was an Austrian NightJet (overnight train) which has way more limited capacity. I think people who know they want to take those overnight trains snap up those tickets pretty soon after they go on sale, so I wasn't really too surprised not to find many options there.
I don't know enough about German trains in general to tell you if things sell out or not, sorry. (Although I was unable to get the two preferred trains I wanted when purchasing yesterday for a July 24 daytime train, and had to take my 3rd choice as a result).
Hi Kenko -- yes I am a heavy user of Trainline -- have been since it was the original French Capitaine Train.
Well, I unfortunately had to turn away from this back in May -- went home to the States and did a bunch of stuff for my folks, had a lot of work last week, etc etc.
I finally purchased all my tickets this morning (well I purchased some Friday night, I guess).
Of course the cheaper tickets were even more gone by now!
My idea for Heidelberg went by the wayside as there seems to be some issue on my travel dates getting east of Kaiserslautern. So I got tired of messing with it -- I will go on purpose this fall.
So -- I bought:
RT on Thalys Paris --Cologne, I think I got a little discount due to my Carte Avantage.
(Bonus ! I got in touch last night with a friend from graduate school who lives in Cologne to see if she would want to get together dor a drink/dinner whatever the day I am there. She immediately replied yes, so I will get to see her -- first time in more than 25 years -- and meet her husband.)
Then I bought a 25% off Trial Bahn Card for 1st class and bought tickets :
Cologne -- Copenhagen (via Hamburg). This time when I looked to do the split ticketing, it was not any cheaper than the through ticket, so I just went for that.
Kolding -- Cologne, again via Hamburg. Kolding is a Danish town where I will spend a couple of days after my five days in Copenhagen with my brother and his family.
So if I had known what I was doing earlier, or had had time yo mess with this earlier, I could have gotten things more cheaply, I am sure. But I am pretty happy with how I ended up, and while I know most folks on the Forum sing that 2nd class is fine, I have to admit that as much time as I am going to be spending on these trains, I know I will be happier for that tiny extra bit of comfort in First Class.
I am looking forward to my journey and packing I want to rather than how the airline and airport security gods say I must. Champagne in my carry-on?? Yes. !!!! (Indeed, everything is a carry-on on the train ).
Thanks to everyone who offered their advice and expertise to help me out !
