Hi everyone! On June 28th (15 days from today), I am traveling from Krakow to Prague. From this article on Seat61, I found that advance-purchase fairs for the EuroNight sleeper train, Chopin, start at €29 with couchette in 6-berth. I attempted to buy a ticket through Czech Railways www.cd.cz, but the ticket price came out to roughly €66 with a couchette in a 6-berth.
Does anyone know if it is too late to buy a ticket with the advance-purchase fair? Any advice is appreciated!!!
One sentence in that Seat61 link caught my attention. "Fares very like airline fares" . To me that means there are a limited number of tickets sold at the cheapest fares and when they are sold the price for the next tickets increases etc. That is like advance fare tickets on trains like the Eurostar, TGV trains in France, etc. That's probably why you're seeing a higher price.
It's also possible that there has been an increase in price that is not yet reflected on the Seat61 site.
Krakow to Prague in a couchette for 66 Euro at the height of the tourist season seems like a very good deal - especially when you consider the cost of a hotel room for the evening - which you're avoiding.
It has been years since I took that sleeper train route, but I recall that the fare through Czech Railways was more than purchasing the ticket through Polish Railways. At the time, you couldn't buy those online, so I bought through PolRail and had an excellent experience, including ticket delivery to my hotel.
All of that may have changed since 2018.
International tickets go on sale 60 days in advance and this is when you have to search for offers. 15 days before travel they are all most likely gone. I remember reading somewhere that discounted tickets are only for seats, not couchettes or sleeper cars but I don't know what the current rules are.
