German train help

The Deutschland-Ticket would be 4 x €63 = €252. It would cover everything the other tickets might cover. I'm assuming that all your travel dates are in December.

Days 3, 4 & 7 would be Bayern ticket days if you don't have the D-ticket, so that's €195 already. Then you'd have to get tix for 3 additional days on the MVV. So if you save anything at all with this 6 tickets for 6 days strategy, I'd be shocked. But even if you were to save a few Euros, the convenience of the D-Tickets will be a blessing as they have no black-out periods (as the Bayern Ticket does) and do not restrict you from changing your plans at a moment's notice.

Russ is right. The D-ticket would be much more convenient and certainly no more expensive. Just keep in mind that it is a subscription, so you have to cancel it at the end of the month (Edit: it's better to cancel it earlier if you can), but that's easy to do. And since the ticket begins on the first day of the month, your whole trip should be covered.

I cannot begin to thank you both. I just couldn't wrap my head around the tickets, different trains, zones etc...

I was in Germany last September with my wife. We were heading to the airport to leave. My wife dragged the bags down the ramp to the train stop, and I bought our tickets. Went to the machine, asked for English and then paid cash for a ticket for two covering the two stops to the airport. Train came, we got on with our bags. 5 minutes later, a woman came up and wanted to see our tickets. Since I paid for them, I reached in my pocket and produced the ticket. She looked at it and asked were my wife's ticket was. I said the ticket was for two. She showed it to me, it was a single ticket. Apparently another ticket fell in the slot and was still there. I told her I bought two with cash. She gave me a 60€ "souvenir" to remember the trip.

Again, THANK YOU!

To put your mind at ease.
DAY 1: Zone M-5 Group ticket 29.30 EUR
Day 2: Zone M-3 Group ticket 23.40 EUR
Day 3: 4 person Bayern ticket 64 EUR
Day 4: 4 person Bayern ticket 64 EUR
Day 7: 4 person Bayern ticket 64 EUR
Day 8: Zone 3-5 Group ticket 19.20 EUR
Total 263.90 EUR

So you are saving 11.90 EUR for the group as well as the added flexibility. and with Group tickets, everyone has to be traveling together all the time, as in this case, there is only one ticket

One more detail of concern here... Whenever you use the D-ticket, you must be sure to ride only the REGIONAL trains and NOT the LONG-DISTANCE trains (which are the ICE, the IC, the EC, and the RJ or RailJet trains.) Your D-Ticket would be worthless on these trains, the same as riding without a ticket, with the same €60 consequence.

Regional trains you might ride should have labels like S, RE, RB, IRE, BRB on the departure boards inside the station and on the platforms. You can hop on any of these at any hour of the day with the Deutschland-ticket.

Also, like the Bayern ticket, the Deutschland-Ticket gives you unlimited, free access to local public transport in cities across Germany. It covers buses, trams, U-Bahn (underground), and S-Bahn (suburban trains) as well as the regional trains.

Day 3: Neufahrn to Munich, then train to Regensburg. Later train to Munich-Neufahrn

It looks like you want to travel directly to Regensburg and back. If so, you don’t need to go all the way into Munich first. Take the S1 from Neufahrn to Freising, and from there, take the train to Regensburg. There are two connections per hour, at minute 16 and 56 past the hour. Please note for the return trip: The train stops first in "Neufahrn (Niederbayern)" — that is not your Neufahrn. Your destination is “Neufahrn bei Freising.”

BTW, regarding the Deutschlandticket: It’s only valid with ID. Most conductors don’t care about that, but if you run into one who’s had a bad breakfast, it’ll get very expensive without ID.

How can I possibly thank all of these wonderful people that replied? My mind is so at ease now. You each have done a great service to a stranger. Gd bless each of you

Just keep in mind that it is a subscription, so you have to cancel it at the end of the month (Edit: it's better to cancel it earlier if you can),

Important: You must cancel by the 10th of the month at the latest (this isn’t meant to be a hassle, but rather to protect the many small carriers who can’t afford an app and have to process the DT manually). The easiest way is: buy – wait for confirmation – cancel. Good apps include HVV Switch or MVV (there are numerous others; everyone has their own favorites; forget about DB Navigator—you need a bank account within the EU for that).
Alternatively, you can buy with a surcharge from a foreign reseller like Tranzer, who will sell you a ticket that has already been canceled.

"One more detail of concern here... Whenever you use the D-ticket, you must be sure to ride only the REGIONAL trains and NOT the LONG-DISTANCE trains (which are the ICE, the IC, the EC, and the RJ or RailJet trains.) Your D-Ticket would be worthless on these trains, the same as riding without a ticket, with the same €60 consequence.
Regional trains you might ride should have labels like S, RE, RB, IRE, BRB on the departure boards inside the station and on the platforms. You can hop on any of these at any hour of the day with the Deutschland-ticket."

Hi Russ, since the D-ticket does not cover Long-Distance trains is there another pass or ticket that does?

Also, would it make more sense to ride without a ticket on some of the Long-Distance trains which cost more than the €60 fine? For example, there are non-stop (i.e. no transfers involved) trains from Berlin to Cologne that cost anywhere from 65.99 to 79.99 as listed on the DB app, it would seem to be a better deal in this instance to just pay the €60 fine? Or do they also make you pay the actual ticket cost as well plus the fine? Just curious . . .

Also, would it make more sense to ride without a ticket on some of the Long-Distance trains which cost more than the €60 fine? For example, there are non-stop (i.e. no transfers involved) trains from Berlin to Cologne that cost anywhere from 65.99 to 79.99 as listed on the DB app, it would seem to be a better deal in this instance to just pay the €60 fine? Or do they also make you pay the actual ticket cost as well plus the fine?

This clever strategy will fail precisely because of what you wrote. The €60 is an additional “service fee” per ticket on top of the regular fare for the route, i.e., Berlin to Cologne starting at €170.

And because they know they can’t collect the money from a non-EU citizen after they’ve left the country, they’ll notify the federal police, who will (hopefully politely) ask you to pay immediately. So be prepared for a longer travel time.

"Hi Russ, since the D-ticket does not cover Long-Distance trains is there another pass or ticket that does?"

The German Rail Pass covers long-distance AND regional trains. Of course, the cost per day is fairly high compared with the D-Ticket; 5 flexi days for 2 adults (twin pass) in 2nd class = US$564. So if you also have multiple days of regional-train-only journeys in mind (for outings from a travel base, for example) then you might buy the GRP only for the long-distance days - plus the D-Ticket for your regional-only days. 5 days of regional-only = 128 Euros/2 with the D-Ticket; without the D-ticket, you'd need 5 additional days on the GRP twin pass, which would add $252 to your pass costs (10-day twin-pass = $816.) And of course with the D-Ticket, all your inner-city transportation is also covered.

As Fritz points out, you'll be charged the fine PLUS the full-fare price for the ticket you need for riding without a valid ticket. The full-price ticket is normally much pricier than the 66-80-Euro saver fare ticket prices you are quoting (which are DISCOUNTED, Non-refundable fares that require you to travel only on pre-scheduled specific trains at specific travel times.)

The 5-day twin-pass mentioned above at $564/2 means you pay only $56.40 each for each day of unrestricted train travel. A pass for fewer travel days costs more per day, and the cost per day drops as you buy more travel days. Besides the flexibility to spontaneously make additional journeys on a given travel day, and to travel on a different day than planned, the GRP also permits travel to certain destinations OUTSIDE Germany. So whether you go with saver fares or a GRP depends heavily on the nature of your itinerary.

We did the Bayern Ticket last Summer, when we visited Augsburg, Munich and then took a river cruise at Regensburg.

We saved lots on the Bayern Ticket, since we purchased it on Friday (it was valid all weekend -Sat and Sun).
The only drawback was that we could only take the Regional trains. They were always crowded and half the time, we had to stand for a portion of our ride.
Still, most of our trips were not long.
The Regional trains stop at many small towns, so they take a bit long to arrive.

A Bayern Ticket is only valid for a single day, even on a weekend. It does remain valid until 3 am the following day, but not many trains running that late. There is one regional train that departs Munich at 4 past midnight Sunday morning, arriving Regensburg at 1:34 am, which would be valid with a ticket dated on Saturday.

The "D" ticket seems to be a good choice. My only concern is as stated above:

"The only drawback was that we could only take the Regional trains. They were always crowded and half the time, we had to stand for a portion of our ride."

I am close to my expiration date. The thought of standing in a crowded car for a 2 hour ride from Munich to Salzburg, then the return trip three days later gives me pause.

Even though we are traveling on a "D" ticket, could we not purchase seats on a specific train?

When you board the regional train to Salzburg, you are boarding at the point of origin, so just get to the platform early and you will be the first on board to get seats. Same applies to the return from Salzburg. The problem with having to stand on a crowded regional train is when you board the train at a midpoint when the train is already full.

BTW, you might have to stand on a long distance train as well if you do not buy a seat reservation in addition to the ticket.

Sam's strategy is good in principle, but the normal route to Salzburg from Neufahrn shows a change of train in Munich OST, which is NOT the origination point for that 2nd train (which has just loaded up passengers at Munich Hbf.)

So what you might do is stay on the first train all the way to Munich Hbf, then impose a time cushion for catching the train to Salzburg, one which allows you to be among the first boarding passengers. Example:

Neufahrn > Munich Hbf 8:44 -9:15, S-Bahn; Munich Hbf > Salzburg 9:47 - 11:46, RE train.

Hello Fritz and Russ, thanks for addressing my curiosity and confirming my suspicions on how a no-ticket rider would be handled plus the escalated costs involved. The Eurail German Rail Pass sounds intriguing because you could use it to fairly cover distant points of the country plus some adjacent countries as well. Hopefully with the 5-day pass they give you some extra time in which to use the 5 travel days (perhaps within 30 days) to allow you to spend time at each of the five areas you have chosen to stay at. For example, I could easily see an itinerary of Hamburg, Cologne, Munich, Salzberg, Dresden and Berlin spread out over 30 days. For the local subway and regional transit at each of these cities a D-ticket would come into play.