German rail passes - can you or can you not buy them at the train station in Germany

According to the Bahn website, you can purchase German Rail passes in Germany at German Rail Pass Aid offices.

If you are already in Germany you can buy your GRP directly in one of
our German Rail Pass Aid offices

There are Aid offices at major city Hauptbahnhofs and a major airports. This page tells where they are.

Also according to the Bahn website, you can now purchase 5, 10, and 15 day consecutive passes for immediate printing online.

Thank you. This page, however, does not specifically say that the passes are available at the Aid Office.

German Rail Pass Aid Offices

There are several major DB ticket offices that serve as so-called "Aid Offices".
In these Aid Offices our friendly and english-speaking DB employees will be happy to assist you in case of questions or problems concerning your German Rail Pass.

Very interesting post on this subject from Tripadvisor:

Be careful when ordering a Deutsche Bahn Railpass from home!
May 10, 2014, 3:37 AM
I have travelled to Germany many times and have always bought a German Railpass from Deutsche Bahn. These are similar to a Eurail pass but only for use in the German rail network and they are only available to foreign travellers. You get a cheaper price on unlimited travel for 5, 7 or 10 days in a defined time period and they are quite a good deal. You can order them on the DB website or buy them at specific (not all) stations in Germany. They are issued as paper tickets which are then punched by the conductor every time you use them on the train. The reason for my post is that I want to warn people what occurs if there is a problem with your ticket so that you can consider if they are really worthwhile or whether you should buy single tickets.

When you book a normal eticket on the DB website it comes as a print at home ticket or you can download it to your phone. These tourist Railpasses, however, are only issued as a one off piece of paper that means everything. If the paper is not in your possession, you have wasted your money. The results of this system if things go wrong with delivery are very frustrating. Last year, while in Germany, I booked one of these passes online and specified it go to my address in Germany. As I was on the system as having booked things from Australia in the past, they disregarded my instructions and sent the ticket to my home in Australia. When this became evident, I went to the station and explained what had happened and requested that they cancel that ticket and reissue a new one. They refused saying that there is no way of cancelling a paper ticket and that if they gave me a new one, I might recover that ticket from Australia at a later date and use it 'for free' for more travel. My only option was to buy a new ticket from scratch. As these passes are generally between 170 and 300 euros I refused. In the end my ticket was sent back to me from Australia and I had to wait the 14 days for it to get back to Germany and delay all my travel plans until it arrived causing hotel bookings to be lost and functions to be missed.

This year, I booked my ticket worth 270 euro early (4 months before my trip) from Australia. Everything went well until the ticket didn't arrive four weeks after I had ordered it. On further emailing with DB, it was confirmed that my order and money had been received and that the ticket had been sent to the correct address,. The failure to arrive was obviously the postman's fault and not DB for sending expensive documents unregistered so they again refused to reissue me a new ticket. They suggested that I might be lying about the situation in order to score a second 'free' pass. Their only solution has been that I can spend another 270 euro on a new pass and then write a complaint letter with the new ticket after I have used it and returned home and they may consider a refund or not.

Bad customer service is one thing but these transaction involve larger amounts of money than the average train ticket and it is a ridiculous that there is no way of tracking or cancelling the ticket and reissuing a new one. The days of the paper ticket with the punchholes and no barcode or any other means of tracking should be over in a country like Germany but clearly that is not the case.

I therefore urge travellers considering these passes to think if you are really getting your money's worth in discounts before buying one and where possible purchasing it in country. The level of stress and financial loss that results when something goes wrong and there appears to be no contingency plan to deal with such situations makes me question whether it is worth any tourist's while.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g187275-i116-k7441293-o10-Be_careful_when_ordering_a_Deutsche_Bahn_Railpass_from_home-Germany.html

This page, however, does not specifically say that the passes are
available at the Aid Office.

No, that page doesn't, but this page does (bottom of middle column, "How to buy it").

Super. For those not wanting to search:

If you are already in Germany you can buy your GRP directly in one of our German Rail Pass Aid Offices.

It's worth adding here that German Rail Passes.com (http://www.germanrailpasses.com/), which will answer your questions on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/germanrailpasses/), is offering all of these passes but at a higher price than you can get directly from DB.

German Rail Passes.com ... is offering all of these passes but at a
higher price than you can get directly from DB.

German Rail Passes.com offers the passes in USD whereas the Bahn prices are in euro. The USD prices are probably set using the exchange rate effective at the time they are set, not the rate today, hence the difference. I've seen times when the converted rate was less in dollars, and other times when it was less in euro.

At one time, the Eurail website (Eurail owns germanrailpasses.com) offered German Rail passes in either euro or USD. Some days it was cheaper in euro, other days it was cheaper in dollars.

I've bought a pass at the Frankfurt airport.

Now that I know the passes can be purchased in Germany (I don't believe it was always this way), I don't see any reason to purchase them beforehand. In fact, I can think of 3 reasons not to:

1. You may pay a higher price.
2. If you have to cancel your trip, you have the extra hassle of dealing with the refund of the pre-purchased ticket, if it's even possible to get a refund.
3. There's a small chance of some foul-up with the mail, whereas there's no chance of a foul-up when DB hands you your ticket in Germany.

"I can think of 3 reasons not to (pre-purchase a German Rail pass)..."

Your Reason #2: Don't forget the FEE for a refund - pretty sure it's 15%!

There's one good reason someone might want to pre-purchase the GRP - that's if you're entering Germany from another country by train and wish to use the GRP for a major travel leg within Germany that same day. This was the case for us in May of this year. We had pre-purchased a cheapo saver fare for Copenhagen-Lübeck to enter Germany, then used our German Rail pass to continue Lübeck to Hamburg (where we had a change of train) and then from Hamburg to Lutherstadt Wittenberg. Without the German Rail pass in hand, we could not have stayed on the Copenhagen-Lübeck-Hamburg train; we'd have needed to get off in Lübeck, buy the railpass, and reboard another train an hour or two later. And we were prepared to do this if necessary... But with the GRP in hand, we approached the DB conductor prior to Lübeck and explained our intention to travel to Lutherstadt Wittenberg on the GRP. We were able to get our passage from Lübeck to Hamburg semi-officially authorized - he had us enter the travel date in his presence. Officially, the pass wasn't yet authorized - something you can do only at a DB office - but with the dates entered, we committed to using our scheduled layover time in Hamburg to visit the DB office in the station there to get the official rail pass authorization stamp - which we did.

The DB rail pass has a shorter duration of validity. It's only good for one month but it is cheaper if that is what you want. That's not good enough, the Eurail is a bit higher than than offered by DB but then the Pass is good for 2 months. Two prices are indicated, one in Euro, the other in dollar. That is shown on the website.

I've never used the DB Pass but only the Eurail which I get here from Eurail, it's ordered on-line, takes a week to arrive, ie, a week from the date ordered, which was the case last year and this year. Anyway, I much rather buy the pass here. I order the pass by mid-March, my departure date is set in late May. There is never a shipping fee. No need to worry about getting the Pass in time.

The last time I bought a rail pass was a German Rail Pass in 2000. Considering the trains I took, I just barely broke even, but in retrospect, I could have saved money without spending more time by taking other trains. Since then, I have always analyzed my transportation options before traveling, and a rail pass has never been cost effective.

If your sole concern is saving money, then you may be able to go cheaper by buying tickets in a different fashion. Part of the joy of the pass, however, is the flexibility it affords you. Just show up, hop on, and go. That's worth something to me. Plus I get the first class pass because I prefer the first class cabins, and the rail pass is a great deal for that, I think.

"Part of the joy of the pass, however, is the flexibility it affords you. Just show up, hop on, and go. That's worth something to me."

I like that too about German Rail passes. But that's why I also like the "hop-on-and-go" day passes offered by DB like the Länder Tickets, the Quer-durchs-Land tickets, and the Happy Weekend tickets, as well the day- and multi-day passes offered by local transit authorities around Germany, The VGN (Nuremberg region) offers a weekend ticket for two adults good for Sat and Sun for less than €20 - and you can hop off and on all you like within the region - Bamberg, Rothenburg. Würzburg are all easily within reach.

All in all, m experience has been much like Lee's. For me/us, rail passes have only rarely competed favorably with the other ticketing options (saver fares, day passes, etc.) Normally, my/our trips involve only these latter options.

But the rail pass DID work out well for our May 2, 2016 trip. First of all, the bargain stars were aligned... two travelers on a 7-day-in-30, 2nd class twin-pass at a promotional discount of 20%. Price was $385/2. (Additionally, I purchased saver fares from DB for specific routes and local tickets within the Netherlands.) This trip was planned roughly 6 weeks in advance - not soon enough to take advantage of the extreme-low fares for p2p saver tickets. Perhaps if we'd had it all worked out by February 2, the saver-fares-only strategy would've saved a few $, but those fares had already risen a bit and our costs were approximately the same either way.

So one important factor in cost comparison is how early you plan your trip. Another is how willing or unwilling you are to KEEP the trip plans you set in stone 3 months earlier. Stuff happens... Your pre-booked hotel has had a flood and cancels your 2-night reservation a week before you leave, and you can't find an un-flooded room in town, and you want to stay longer in the previous base town ... Or you discover your favorite band has a concert in some other city far from where you booked... Or some normally quiet German town is now under martial law due to terror threats... There are certain significant advantages to a rail pass that in my judgment make it worth an additional 20% or so.

That said, I normally find myself traveling as Lee does - saver fares and day passes normally save me/us around 50% plus over the rail pass option.

Part of the joy of the pass, however, is the flexibility it affords
you

I think "flexibility is a cover-up for poor planning. Even using totally flexible regional passes, I rarely miss taking a train I've planned on taking.

In the last 9 weeks of travel, I've only used three advance purchase tickets (so many of the places I go to are only served by regional trains). Actually, the last advance purchase ticket was kind of a fluke. I went from Bad Schandau to Freising via Dresden and Hof. Dresden to Freising as all regional. I could have taken the S-Bahn from Bad Schandau into Dresden, but the regional fare from Bad Schandau to Freising that way is 95€. By taking the Prague to Berlin EC for 27 minutes from Bad Schandau to Dresden, I was able to use a SparPreis ticket for only 29€.

Even if I had missed the EC, the rest of the ticket would have been valid for regional trains later that day (Vor- und Nachlauf). All I would have had to pay for would have been 6,20€ for the S-Bahn into Dresen.

I think "flexibility is a cover-up for poor planning.

Probably true. However, for me, planning my trips down to the day and time does not spell vacation. Vacation is doing what I want when I want. For that flexibility, I will pay a bit extra.

I lived in Germany for 8 years, so I don't need or want to run around seeing everything. I base myself in one place and take day trips as the desire strikes me. Love it that way. That's relaxation.

I can think of lots of reasons to preserve your flexibility, whether you're undecided, have plenty of time, have a history of oversleeping, run into a street market on the way to the train station, have a family in tow, or whatever.

The German Rail Pass is administrated by the DB, not by the Eurail consortium. So it's been sold in major stations there for as long as I've known it - over 20 years. The print-at-home consecutive-day version is new in the last year or so and is pre-validated (setting the start and end dates) when you buy it.

A regular, printed rail pass does retain all its value in that one piece of paper and cannot be replaced if lost or stolen. The same is true for any train ticket printed on railway ticket stock. That's why US retailers ship by UPS or FedEx, so the shipment is at least traceable.

I have to plan more than usual but that depends on the time constraint, still I want to retain the option of choice instead sacrificing flexibility. I admire those who can travel without much planning if at all, ie, basically winging it, which is not really an option for me since I am too picky on where to stay.

I compared costs for an upcoming trip. The pass is about $50 less than individual tickets ($247 vs $294). I did choose cheaper trains for the individual tickets if the delay wasn't too long. I'm sure I could have gotten somewhat cheaper tickets if I used "red-eye' trains, traveled in a limited area, or bought tickets weeks ago. Each person's situation is different. If you can take advantage of tickets deals, are travelling relatively short distances, or are willing to commit to a schedule weeks ahead of time, you might do better using individual tickets. I have two credit cards (AMEX and Barclay) with no foreign transaction fees, so I'll use one of them to buy the pass in Germany.

We never plan - just arrival & departure cities with a very loose itinerary in between. That is the flexibility I love - its not about missing a train but about being able to stay longer or shorter in a place if you want or switch up an itinerary if conditions are less than desirable in a destination (weather, local issues, etc..) Sometimes the lines to buy a ticket at rail stations are long - with a rail pass you can skip the line! It's not always about the $$$

We never plan - just arrival & departure cities with a very loose itinerary in between.

I sometimes do different arrival and departure cities. Sometimes I just do one city (my favorite) and take day trips. When I'm with people who haven't been to Germany, I do the city tour thing, but that's not my preference, as it involves lugging the luggage around, packing and repacking (my least favorite things). The one-city-as-base-and-day-trips model requires that you have and know one city that you really enjoy being in, though.

"We never plan...." Bravo! My compliments on such a way of traveling where you don't sacrifice flexibility for expenses. I do keep expenses in mind, that's one reason for including at least one night train ride on each trip. This last trip in June I purposely "planned" on doing two night train rides. Depending on the circumstances I use the discounted tickets for the unimportant routes on the ICE.

If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!

Benjamin Franklin

If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!

I'm sorry, but that's just silly. We are talking about vacations here, are we not? You go ahead and plan the hell out of your vacation; I will drift like a leaf in the wind. We will both be "successful"--so long as we don't have to travel together. ;)

"I wonder as I wander."

--Langston Hughes

If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!

I'm sorry, but that's just silly. We are talking about vacations here,
are we not? You go ahead and plan the hell out of your vacation; I
will drift like a leaf in the wind. We will both be "successful"--so
long as we don't have to travel together. ;) "I wonder as I wander."

--Langston Hughes

No kidding! I have not failed at over 20 trips...but I have had some great spontaneous fun over the years!

No one way is right or wrong...it is just what works for you that counts.