Rail pass or not?

The only day that a rail pass might pay off is the Salzburg to Erfurt day. The rest can (or rather: has to) be done on regional trains usable with cheaper and flexible regional tickets (e.g., the Bayern Ticket).

Airport to Munich This is an MVV local ticket
Munich to Salzburg This is a Bayern Ticket
Salzburg to Berchtesgaden and back (via bus) This is a local ticket
Erfurt to Eisenach and back This a Thueringen ticket
Erfurt to Wittenberg This is a Thueringen Ticket
Wittenberg to Berlin This is a Brandenburg- Berlin Ticket
Berlin to airport This is a city bus

All except Salzburg to Erfurt are local tickets or Laender tickets which have special small group deals, often your children (you are the parents or grandparents, nicht war?) travel with for free. and they are totally flexible and can be bought just before travel. So a rail pass is not indicated. For instance, Munich to Salzburg is a Bayern Ticket, 25 EUR for the first adult, 6 EUR for the second adult, children (of which one of the adults is a parent or grandparent) ride free. Travel regional trains after 9 am weekdays, anytime weekends. Buy out of a ticket kiosk or pay an extra 2 EUR to buy at a ticket window. Buy just before start of travel. Write all the names of the travelers on the back of the ticket.

Edit: Salzburg to Erfurt can be done with a Quer durchs Land Ticket, taking only 1 hour longer and one more train change than an expensive Flexpreis ticket. 52 EUR weekdays after 9 am, or 44 EUR on the weekends. Similar restrictions as the Bayern Ticket.

kreske: Good advice above. You can read about the Laender/Länder Tickets (Bayern Ticket, Thüringen Ticket, etc.) HERE. All of these day passes oblige you to use the regional trains (RE, RB, IRE, M, and several other abbreviations are used - don't board the long-distance IC, ICE, EC or RJ trains or you could be fined.) One advantage for the day passes is the use of inner-city transport (trams, buses, subways) within certain cities. Can't do those with a rail pass.

Finding journeys by regional train: Use the DB itinerary search page to figure out the departure times, travel times, routing, and changes of train for each trip. Be sure to check the "only local transport" box when you do your searches - this will exclude long-distance trains from your itineraries.

Again, buy these tickets at the station, not now. They are not refundable if you should need to change your plans.

Sam writes, "Airport to Munich This is an MVV local ticket"
MVV is the local transit authority. You will probably want their "airport-city day ticket" which you can read about HERE. Just buy it at the airport train station.

An itinerary change you might consider: Do Salzburg first, then Munich. That way, your trip to Erfurt is more reasonable. If you do as Sam suggests and use the Quer durchs Land ticket, the trip from Munich will be 6.5-7 hours instead of 8-9 hours from Salzburg; or if you use the high-speed trains, it's 5 hours instead of 7-8 hours.

"...we want some flexibility." That's what it boils down to: flexibility over savings. If savings are irrelevant, then get the Pass. The places in Germany listed can done with ICE or IC trains. I much prefer those over the RB trains. Savings means you've locked yourself in to a specific train, date and departure, ie you have to commit, thereby sacrificing any flexibility. The drawback for you in getting a Pass is that you have only two weeks, three would be better. I use a Pass, but only in Austria and Germany.

You're not locked into a specific train until you buy the ticket, and some (all?) of those tickets can be bought on the day of travel.

Salzburg to Berchtesgaden and back (via bus) This is a local ticket

The bus (RVO 840, Watzmann Express) is the fastest way from Salzburg to Berchtesgaden in just under an hour.
For the bus from Salzburg to Berchtesgaden and back, you can buy an RVO Tagesticket Familie for 23,50€ from the driver. It covers both adults and your children.

The last bus to Salzburg leaves Berchtesgaden around 6 PM. If you want to stay later, for can go both ways on the train with a Bayern-Ticket for 31,-€. The trains run until late at night. The Bayern-Ticket is not valid for the bus since most of it's run is outside Bavaria.

You can also take the bus (shorter travel time) to Berchtesgaden and come home on the train with a BGL TagesTicket Bus & Bahn for 12€ per adult (your children under 15 are free).

All of the above are also valid for most of the buses in Berchtesgaden.

Ok: I will confess that I am now slightly more confused than previously.

Would a rail pass not be valid at all for shorter, regional trips (like Erfurt to Eisenach)? Or would it only work if we are on a DB train, not a regional line?

Do the regional train day passes not allow you to leave for a destination before 9am? My kids are early risers...we will easily be out and about before 9am.

Isn't a rail pass good for some travel within cities (on the S-bahn)?

Thanks again!

Rail passes are valid on S-Bahn trains operated by DB - but not on subways, trams, or buses in the inner city.
Rail passes are valid for short or long trips, and on regional or long-distance trains, at any hour of the day.
On weekdays the Länder tickets are valid only from 9 am - on Sat or Sun at any hour.

MUC-Munich, Berlin - airport by bus, and Salzburg-B'gaden-Salzburg by bus are not rail pass material.
Let's assume you buy these 3 journeys separately. Let's also exclude them from the discussion for now...

Let's assume you buy all the other 5 journeys separately too. And let's just say you always travel before 9:00 am. and always on weekdays.

• Munich-Salzburg: normal tickets on the Meridian train = €62 (any hour you like.)

• Salzburg-Erfurt: Long trip. Can you buy this ONE ticket in advance? Let's say you pre-purchase tickets for the fast trains. Maybe only €48. Maybe more. Check price for your travel date.

• Erfurt-Eisenach-Erfurt: €51.60 round trip for regular price tickets on regional trains.

• Erfurt-Lutherst. Wittenberg: 1 Thüringen Ticket + Luther (€40)

• Lutherst. Wittenberg - Berlin: Regio 120 Ticket + Luther (€40)

(These last 2 ticket options have not been mentioned previously; the price includes €5 each adult surcharge for traveling before 9:00 - that's the "Luther" part, a special ticket accommodation to celebrate 500 years of the Reformation.)

So depending on the price of the pre-purchased ticket you might do these 5 trips for around €250 (or less.)

By comparison... Two 5-day adult rail passes could cover 2 adults, 2 kids on these 5 travel legs. That's €446 at DB (about €90/travel day.)

I believe children, between the ages of 6 and 11 travel free (max 2 children per adult) on a GRP. So a 5 day Flex Twin pass is 335 EUR.
Still for the 4 days with Laender tickets is 120 EUR total and the QdL ticket from Salzburg to Erfurt for 52 EUR on a week day, that's 172 EUR, almost half the price of that GRP.

That is why us skinflints recommend doing it that way. But money means different things to different people. Just so you know what the options are. And remember, some of your travel days will be Saturday or Sunday when there are no time restrictions.

"I believe children, between the ages of 6 and 11 travel free (max 2 children per adult) on a GRP. So a 5 day Flex Twin pass is 335 EUR."

Sam, I think you might be correct here but I'm not certain - I was thinking that only the individual adult passes allow children to travel for free, that the twin pass is strictly for two. Do you have a source that clarifies this?

Like everything else translated to English from German by Germans, it is slightly ambiguous.
https://www.bahn.com/en/view/mdb/bahnintern/international/partnerbilder/pdf_2017/mdb_242383_flyer_grp_2017.pdf

Since it is a pdf file and the relevant text is on the second page and upside down, I had to print it to read it.

Thanks, Sam. Yes, ambiguous.

Thanks again. I spent some time last night on the DB site looking at times, fares, etc. Sam, can you clarify how you came up with the low fare (maybe as low as 48 euros) for the trip from Salzburg - Erfurt? I was not able to find any fares that low for our travel date (Friday June 2). Every itinerary I saw was over 100 euros for that trip. For all the other parts of our itinerary, I found fares similar to those you listed.

I also thought our two kids were covered under a Twin rail pass, but if we decide to go with the rail pass, I would probably contact DB directly to verify this first.

There are no really cheap saver fares for your date and destination. The cheapest ones are for the departure at 6:41 (€151.80 for the family) and 9:15 (143.80). But travel times are so long (7:36 and 7:53, resp.) that it would be more economical to travel on a "Quer durchs Land" - ticket (€52 for the family, subject to the 9am restriction). The connection with the train departing 9:09 takes just a few minutes longer (7:59). Moreover it includes an ALX train from Landshut to Hof. ALX trains are composed of old fashioned compartement cars which give some privacy and they have a snack desk.

Yes, and if you travel on a Saturday and Sunday, it is a Schoenes Wochende Ticket, not time restricted and is a flat 44 EUR.
On the Deutsche Bahn website, when you do an itinerary search, check the box "only local transport". Then you will be shown itineraries using only regional trains and the price using the QdL or SW offers.

"...can you clarify how you came up with the low fare (maybe as low as 48 euros) for the trip from Salzburg - Erfurt? I was not able to find any fares that low for our travel date (Friday June 2). Every itinerary I saw was over 100 euros for that trip."

€48 was (I thought) the lowest possible fare and is available on some dates - I just looked and found a fare of €38 for June 1 at some odd hour - but tickets for your particular date have been on sale for more than 4 months at this point and apparently the lower prices for popular travel hours on June 2 have been scooped up.

The €52 QDL ticket will work... but as sla019 points out, it's a pretty long day on multiple trains.

The rail pass looks more viable than it was before.

Another option: Leave Salzburg in the pm of June 1 and travel to some mid-way point (Regensburg? Nuremberg?) for a night using a Bayern Ticket; proceed on June 2 from there with the QDL to Erfurt.

Hi all - just thought I'd add an update on how the trip went. We decided to get a rail pass, both because the weather was looking questionable for a few of the days we were traveling (so wanted flexibility for day trips that involved being outside) and because there were no particularly inexpensive tickets left for the big travel day (Salzburg to Erfurt).

The rail pass came in particularly handy on a couple of occasions. We made seat reservations for the trains from Salzburg to Erfurt since that was such a long travel day, only to arrive at the Salzburg train station bright and early in the morning and find out that our incoming train was delayed by an hour. This would have caused us to miss our connecting trains in Munich and Fulda (not a big deal, but we were really hoping to do some sightseeing in Erfurt that afternoon). But, the rail pass allowed us to jump on the next train to Munich, and we arrived in time to catch our train to Fulda with a whopping 5 minutes to spare. We also appreciated the rail pass on the day we went to Eisenach; it rained that day, so we tried to plan our travel around staying dry. (We were mostly successful.)

On the other hand, twice we were on trains (Eisenach to Erfurt, Wittenberg to Berlin) with absolutely no free seats available. We ended up standing in the back of a rail car, squashed in with others who didn't make seat reservations. Thankfully both those rides were <1 hour in length. Had we bought point-to-point tickets, we probably would have reserved seats and saved ourselves a few uncomfortable train rides.

Overall we might have been able to save a little money by buying point-to-point tickets, but this worked for us. We don't travel to Europe very often, so it was worth spending a little more to ensure we were able to see all the sights were looking forward to. Thanks for all your advice!

Good ...you got a taste of how German train travel can be sometimes: .standing there along with everyone else. The train Pass is advantageous when sacrificing flexiblity over savings is not worth it, or you change your mind as to where to go., say, Naumburg an der Saale over Dresden.