My husband and I are staying with family in Frankfurt. We have decided to take a train trip to Paris and then will likely do most of the rest of our traveling in Germany. We will be there for 10 days at the end of April, first part of May. Should we consider a rail pass or just buy our tickets as we go? I've been looking on the Bahn website and found round trip tickets to Paris at 88 Euros. I really feel like I want to get those tickets ahead of time and then be flexible with the rest of our trip. My BIL said he has purchased a Bahn 25 card that gives 25% off train tickets. Is anyone familiar with this? I'm not sure exactly how that works and he didn't have specifics. Thanks so much,
Jennifer
Posted by
Danville, VT
12040 posts
Bahn cards are a yearly subscription that automatically renews unless you cancel. You have to pre-order them and include a passport photo of yourself. I have a Bahn card 50, and it saves me a lot of money. However, you probably wouldn't save much or anything on a 10 day trip.
Posted by
Minneapolis, MN, USA
8700 posts
Yes, buy your Frankfurt-Paris and Paris-Frankfurt tickets ASAP. There is an allotted number of discount fare tickets. As the cheapest ones are sold the price will keep going up. Exactly where do you plan to go within Germany? If you don't need to take high-speed trains and can limit yourselves to regional trains, you can be flexible and still save money. A Länder-Ticket allows 2-5 people to travel all day (after 09:00 on weekdays and anytime on weekends) in a particular region for one set price. A Schönes-Wochenende-Ticket allows 2-5 people to travel throughout Germany anytime all day on either Saturday or Sunday for one set price. A Quer-Durchs-Land-Ticket allows one person to travel throughout Germany anytime all day on weekdays. Each additional person costs €6. Click on the links to these offers here under the heading "Regional Tickets within Germany."
Posted by
OP
Indy area, IN
21 posts
Thanks so much for the feedback. Your responses confirm what I am thinking - just order my tickets for Paris now and skip the rail passes. Although we have grand dreams of seeing so much, in reality I know our time is limited and most likely we will just be traveling regionally when in Germany so the trips will be less expensive. Thanks for the feedback!
Posted by
Stuttgart, Germany
3050 posts
One thing to consider if you have limited time and want to travel far in Germany AND remain flexible is a German Rail Pass. But I'd only recommend that if you're going to be taking ICE trains to travel far. If not, the regional options suggested above are a better bet.
Posted by
Lakewood, Colorado
19274 posts
A German Rail Twin pass varies from €45/day for a three day pass to €24/day for a ten day pass. That's per person. It's unlikely that using individual tickets you would spend that much, but you need to figure that out yourselves. Create a likely itinerary and look up prices on the German Rail (Bahn) website. And remember, Länder tickets vary from €12/p and €12,50/p in five German Länder, including Rheinland-Pfalz and Baden-Württemberg to €18,00/p in Nordrhein-Westfalen. On weekends, the Schönes-Wochende-Ticket is €20/p and on weekday, the QdLT is €24/p. All those prices based on 2 people traveling together. You can read more about Länder tickets and prices on my webpage. On the Bahn website, the German language side has correct prices for this year. Not all the prices on the English side (Tim's link above) are correct.