Eurail Global Pass

1. No, not free because you’re paying for a crazy expensive pass already.

2. No

I encourage you to read the information on the Man in Seat 61 website for an overview of train passes and train travel in Europe.

Even with a pass, you may find that some of your trains require seat reservations, and there will be an extra fee for those.

How are you getting from Prague to Vienna? And you are doing a same return Vienna to Salzburg, then going from Salzburg to Munich. What about Vienna to Salzburg? And how did Liechtenstein get in there?

There are no required seat reservations, however a family of 4 that wants to be sure of sitting together, you might want to pay extra for reservations on some trains.

Since you know your travel dates, look at what it will cost to buy nonrefundable train specific tickets now and see if the Eurail Global Pass saves money or not. I know that Salzburg to Munich can be done with a Bayern Ticket for 31 EUR for the 4 of you. Buy day of travel out of a vending machine and use regional trains after 9 am on weekdays, anytime on weekends.

Edit - As an example, the 8:38 ICE to Hamburg on June 5 is showing to be very full right now, so seat reservations at 4.50 EUR per person would be highly recommended if you wanted to take that train. www.bahn.com will show expected loading on each train in the near future for German trains.

Hi Sam,
My trip from prague to viennna is by a car.
You are right on vienna salzburg, in fact it is not return.
Liechtenstein - im planning take a rent a car from Munich to zurich via liechtenstein

You are aware of the extra costs of renting a car in one country and dropping it in another. Also the need to purchase vignettes for Austria and Switzerland to use motorways, which I think will be unavoidable to get to Liechtenstein and Zurich.

Liechtenstein has been talked about ad infinitum. Giant yawn, but I guess everybody needs to find that out for themselves.

Traveling by train in those countries you list, you'll have no mandatory reservations. It's free of cost.

You're doing a day trip Berlin to Hamburg on the ICE, that's pricey. I've done that using a Pass.

Since tour trip is ca 9 days, I would not advise getting the Pass, you're not going long enough. If it were 21 days or more, then I say get the Global Pass. but not for such a short duration.

How are you going to Vienna? From where?

Hi Fred,
Thanks for your advice.
I am planing to go from prague to vienna with a private cab transfer

@ Mahr...You're welcome. I believe that your kids would ride free or at least with a discount. Check on that. They are too young for a Pass.

Eurail has changed, revised its Pass offerings, in some ways much more attractive, in others not so. The prices at the moment are not bad especially if you're a senior going for 15 travel days in two months which does not apply to you.

From the US dollar price and given the Euro price, you can deduce the rate of exchange and then the amount per day in Euro. I would not even get an adv discount price Paris to Frankfurt lower than the Senior Global.

Chances are high that point to point tickets will be your most economical choice. Eurail Passes are RARELY a good idea, and from discussions on this forum it seems that Eurail Passes are talked about mostly by travelers who have little knowledge of train travel.

Eurail Passes sound appealing to newbie travelers, but beware they are overpriced and will require you to pay extra fees such as seat reservations which are already included if you just buy a point to point ticket on trains that require reservations.

The fact that the OP is taking a couple of long distance day trips, Berlin-Hamburg-Berlin, and Vienna-Budapest-Vienna, may lean towards a rail pass. I would, however, look at a 3-day pass rather than a 5-day. With a 5-day, paying about 57 EUR per adult per day, one of those days can be done with a Bayern ticket for 16.50 EUR per adult and be very flexible as to train time for the Salzburg-Munich trip, and Berlin-Prague can be done with Sparpreis advance nonrefundable train-specific ticket for 45 EUR per adult.

I just recently did the math for our trip, which is mostly in Germany and Switzerland.

In summary:

1. It is usually cheaper overall to buy point to point passes, provided they are purchased in advance.
2. The advance fares usually (but not always) cannot be changed once purchased.
3. The price of the tickets purchased on the day of travel (sometimes even several days before) is often (though not always) more. In some cases they are a lot more.
   

The rail passes will cost a bit more than point to point passes bought in advance. However, they will cost less than tickets bought the day of travel. Therefore, the passes afford flexibility and allow you to change your travel plans as needed. We decided that was worth the extra cost, but you might think otherwise.
In any case, I recommend you add up the costs of individual tickets and compare to the passes. The Deutsche Bahn website is excellent for this. Then decide if the difference is worth the flexibility you might acquire.

Have a good trip.

Thank you all. I decided on this and already started booking point to point ticket.
I did my a mistake in my berlin to hamburg ticket. I have booked my ticket to hamburg from berlin for 5th june, but due to a change in our travel plan i want to change date of this train ticket to 6th june. Online system is not allowing me to change the ticket since i already made onetime amendment to my booking for a timeslot change.
Is there any option to change the date of the ticket or refund

@ Mahr....Keep in mind that point to point adv discount tickets are fine in terms of savings but by doing that you have sacrificed savings for flexibility since you have locked yourself in to a date specific train and its specific time of departure.

The bottom line is which factor takes priority, which is more important to you based on your traveling style. If you don't care that much about savings, then these adv purchase tickets aren't what I would buy. If savings are more important, then get the adv purchase discount tickets.

I use one or two of these tickets on my trips too, usually on the Paris-Frankfurt route, the lowest adv purchase price is 39 Euro on the TGV or ICE, 2nd class. Now, that the Eurail Global Pass has been revised, with more incentives, made more attractive with a Senior Pass category, given its total price and 15 days of travel, that Paris-Frankfurt connection will cost 29 Euro as that is the per day amount in Euro.

Thank you all. I decided on this and already started booking point to point ticket.
I did my a mistake in my berlin to hamburg ticket. I have booked my ticket to hamburg from berlin for 5th june, but due to a change in our travel plan i want to change date of this train ticket to 6th june. Online system is not allowing me to change the ticket since i already made onetime amendment to my booking for a timeslot change.
Is there any option to change the date of the ticket or refund

What type of ticket did you buy? That is important. For a Flexpreis ticket, you can get a full refund. For a Sparpreis (saver fare), you can get a partial refund (i.e., you have to pay a fee to get a refund). For a Supersparpreis (super saver fare), there are no refunds.

And how were you able to make an amendment to the booking?