American Ticket Agent for D-Bahn Germany trains

Karen Murphy works for EurAide. Her phone # is 781 828 2488. I have used her several times and she is very knowledgeable.
Barb

Glad you found Karen. But if you're able to navigate and post here on the RS Website you can probably navigate www.bahn.de just as easily and not pay someone else to do it for you.

I agree with Tim. You can do it yourself and save big. The German Rail ticket webpage is easy to use in English.

Euraide can be useful for hard to get items, like for some reservations outside Germany or night train accommodations (reservations) for other than CNL trains (which are available from the Bahn websites), but they charge a lot for the service. I would not use them for anything you could do yourself.

Karen can book trains outside of Germany as well, where you may not have a web site as simple as the DB. If web sites aren't giving you what you expected, that could be a good time to work with Karen. She may have access to certain options that Rail Europe does not, since she's using a different computer system. Note that Rail Europe also charges for service by phone.

RailEurope??? EVERYBODY has access to trains that RailEurope doesn't have. If you'll look at www.bahn.de, www.trenitalia.it, www.sbb.ch, etc you'll find MANY trains that RE doesn't offer AND you'll be able to choose the EXACT station you want. Instead of choosing the generic Milan or Venice station which RE limits you to, you'll be able to select the CORRECT station like Milano Centrale or Venezia S. Lucia.

Hey, past. It would be most interesting and helpful if you would post the details of your itinerary - destinations, travel dates, trip costs for the journeys you are making in Germany, fees for Euraide's assistance, etc. That way readers could better understand your recommendation and the kind of help they should expect from Euraide.

And of course you could return here after your trip and share how everything actually went. That would be helpful too.

One thing that isn't quite clear on the Euraide website is their fee schedule.

"Our basic fee for suggesting and arranging an itinerary, based on your
wishes, is $30, plus an additional $30 for handling and shipping in
the United States."

Does that mean that if you know exactly what tickets you want (i.e., no consulting needed) the fee is just $30 for S&H, or do they always charge for the consulting, making the fee really $60?

Does anyone know that? Laura?

I looked at the fares from the Bahn and from R/E for a couple of popular routes, and it looked like R/E marked up the price about 20% over the German Rail price, so if you have more than around $300 worth of tickets to buy (and maybe want consulting), you probably do better with Euraide than with RailEurope. But compare the Bahn's prices (converted to USD) with R/E's prices to see if you'll pay enough less with Euraide to pay for their fees.

In Germany, reservations are available and optional for most express trains. Except for the rare ICE sprinter, for which reservations are mandatory and more expensive, single seat reservations cost 4,50€ ($5.10 at today's exch rate). RailEurope sells these reservations for $13 ($8 more), so if you need a lot of seat reservations to go with your rail pass, Euraide, even with a $60 fee, could be less expensive. Of course the least expensive route would be to just buy reservations only from the Bahn for 4,50€.

past,

I've never purchased tickets or made other arrangements through EurAide in North America, but have bought tickets from their office in the Munch Hbf. I agree, their representatives are very helpful (I'm assuming it's the same firm?).

I've been watching your replies from work - and not having my password information handy - I have not been able to respond until now.

For security reasons, I was hesitant to post specific information because our trip is still in the future. BUT I chose to use the ticket agent because this is our first trip across the pond. Not having the experience of many of you of travel across Europe - I am glad to pay for the service Karen provided. She was a pleasure to work with. It was her advice that got us the Bayern Ticket - as well she cleared up some concerns about the other trip. Up until we purchased the tickets I had planned to purchase the specific trip tickets directly from D-Bahn - but had concerns about the train schedule being a problem 'meeting' deadline of departures and was unsure what we really needed.

Our 'home' base is Munich. We purchased a Bayern Ticket for an excursion to Bad Reichenhall for a price of 23 Euro each. We also have an excursion to Schweinfurt for the price of 74 Euro each. The fee was 25 Euro for services and delivery - which we got in only a few days time. The tickets are printed in German but she provided receipts in English so I know specifics.

"We purchased a Bayern Ticket for an excursion to Bad Reichenhall for a price of 23 Euro each."

Each ... person? If you purchase a Bayern-Ticket from a Bahn ticket automat (it's probably also sold by MVV machines) it costs 23€ for the first traveler, 5€ each for riders 2-5, so 28€ for two, 33€ for three, etc.

A Bayern-Ticket (same price structure) could also have been used for Munich to Schweinfurt. If you take the RE from Munich to Nürnberg, the trip can be done in 3h20m, only about 25 minutes longer than the full fare express ticket you used, at 74€ each.

I don't know how long in advance you purchased the ticket to Schweinfurt, but with a few month advance purchase, you could have bought a ticket using express trains for 29€ for the first person, 20€ more for each additional person up to five, total.

Wow, I never thought that specifying travel dates here could be a "security concern" - I really don't understand - sorry, was just trying to get a bead on what your ticketing options really were. Anyway, thanks for providing what info you felt comfortable providing.

Lee's comments about those ticketing options are accurate. I would only add that "a few months' advance purchase" is often NOT necessary to get advance-sale prices like the ones Lee gave for Munich - Schweinfurt. I just looked at that route for the date of March 6, ONE WEEK from today, at the DB site. There are 2 morning departures at €49 for two, the exact price Lee quoted you. The rest of the trips are in the €60 - €70 range for two. (Does your €74 each ticket to Schweinfurt also bring you BACK to Munich? That seems unlikely, given that €49 each way for two or €98 total is the lowest express train price at the DB site.) So I am curious, past... did you turn down the "saver fare" option for whatever reason, or was this option not presented to you in the first place?

Based on your information thus far, past, I'm fairly certain that Karen did a good job of removing from your shoulders the burden of information gathering and planning. But I am far from convinced that Karen provided you with a full range of options.