Hi all of you Bahn.de train experts-
I thought I understood all of this train travel but ran into a problem tonight. I want to travel from Frankfurt HBF to Paris on 31 Aug and return on 5 September 2016. So tonight the Bahn.de site posted the trains with savings fares for the first time. I quickly selected 2 tickets for 218 € round trip. The little seat symbol on the selection indicated that the seat reservations were included in this price and that seat reservations were required. . When I went to select the seats the site indicated there were no seats available. I found some information on the Bahn.de site that indicated seat reservations for international travel cannot be made until 60 days before the travel date even though the tickets can be purchased 90 days in advance. If I go on and purchase the tickets now do I have any choice in the seat selection or does Bahn.de arbitrarily assign seats (which could even be in different cars)? Any experience with this would be helpful. I am about ready to throw up my hands and drive...
Many thanks for any help.
Posted by
Seattle, WA
17446 posts
I don't know the official status, but I assure you that every time we have bought train tickets into or out of Germany on an international train on bahn.de, our assigned seats were together, whether I purchased for two or three.
Posted by
OP
San Diego, CA, USA
321 posts
Hi Lola-
I made this same trip about 5 years ago and had no trouble getting seat reservations. But I suspect those reservations were no more than a month in advance. Does your experience include international train trips with reservations made more than 60 days in advance within the last few years?
Thanks for your help!!
Posted by
Seattle, WA
17446 posts
Most recent for an international journey from Germany would be 2013, when we traveled from Munich to Bolzano in Italy. I bought the tickets 90 days in advance to get a great Sparpreis. I did not try to select seats but simply accepted what was assigned to us, three traveling together.
Posted by
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
2779 posts
I never book trains earlier than maybe 2 weeks in advance as I only use them for business travel. However, I've been on Frankfurt-Paris numerous times and I can assure you that this is a train with assigned seats anyway. So you will not end up not having seats.
Frankfurt-Paris are operated by the latest and newest version of the ICE train which no longer comes with compartments or a lot of different choices of seats. It's either airline-like 2 by 2 or it's a group of two 2s facing each other across a table. That's it.
Posted by
Rick Steves' Europe
16895 posts
The direct Frankfurt-Paris trains are ICE or TGV and in this case do always include seat assignments, whether or not you are allowed to choose your own. I assume you're not choosing a departure with connections. Try booking the tickets as two one-ways, instead of roundtrip. Each ticket should be available about 90 days ahead and I see both for sale now.