german rail pass, flexi pass or individual tickets?

If you have read the other questions/answers about railroad pass you will know two things ---- 1) it is not a simple question with a simple answer because the pass have become fairly expensive and requires a lot of travel to make them economical. 2) YOU have to do the homework -- not us ! You need to decide which trains are you are going to use and when. Determine the point to point price (bahn.de) and then and only then will you know if a pass saves money. Get to work !!

Rhonda, that really depends on exactly where you are traveling, whether you can commit to a specific train and a specfic date, and how fast you want to get there.

For around €30, +/- depending on the German State, you can get one of the Länder-Tickets which gives 2 -5 people (one person for ~€20) unlimited travel for an entire day (after 9 AM workdays; any day until 3 AM the next day) in 2nd class on regional trains within a single state. This would be perfect for travel to Salzburg or Füssen.

One a weekend day, there is also the Schönes-Wochenende-Ticket which gives similar travel throughout Germany for 1-5 people for €37.

Those Länder-Tickets are far less expensive than a day of a railpass. Länder-Ticket are unlimited in quatity and can be purchased from ticket automats right up to the time of travel.

If you can commit to a specific train on a specific date, you can go from virtually anywhere to anywhere for as low as €29 per person with Dauer-Spezial tickets. Dauer-Spezial tickets are basically for trips with high speed express trains (ICE/IC/EC), although regional trains can be used as part of the trip. Dauer-Spezial tickets are for specific trains on specific dates, are non-refundable, are limited in quantity at each discounted price, and must be purchased at least 3 days prior to travel.

Before I go to Germany I make up a spreadsheet with rows for each leg of travel and columns for prices. I get prices from the German Rail website. I make a column for full fare tickets and one for discounted tickets (Länder and Dauer). Then I add up the columns and compare the total to a comparable railpass.

In my case, a railpass has never been justified, but I stay in one area (shorter trips than you are planning). Last November, I went from Mainz to Cochem, to the Harz mountains in northern Germany, to Karlsruhe, and back to Mainz (4 days of travel) for less than $140.

For all this around-the-country travel, the $ difference between railpasses and p2p tickets is probably minimal. But the convenience of using a railpass and traveling on high-speed trains easily beats all the pre-planning and pre-purchasing hassle you will experience by using cheap p2p strategies.

I'd probably opt for 4-day twin-passes for Hamburg-Lübeck-Berlin-Frankfurt-Munich. Then use the Bayern ticket for daytrips from Munich to Salzburg and Füssen.

That said, I probably wouldn't have designed your specific itinerary. You're seeing mostly modern Germany, cities that were essentially flattened and rebuilt. One of the charms of Germany is being able to really step back into time and to some of the smaller places spared by Allied forces.
If you have a chance, drop a mega-city or two (at least Frankfurt?) and visit Franconia (Bamberg, Rothenburg?) or tour some authentic medieval castles on the Rhine (nw of Frankfurt near Koblenz) or drop in at some villages between Frankfurt and Hamburg ("Fairy Tale" half-timbered towns - Limburg, Marburg, Hannoversch Münden, Rinteln, Büdingen, Gelnhausen are all possibilities.)

But the convenience of using a railpass and traveling on high-speed trains easily beats all the pre-planning and pre-purchasing hassle

Not necessarily so. On my last trip, I used two Länder-Tickets, which probably took a minute each to purchase at the automats, and I surely spent less than half an hour purchasing online and printing out my Dauer-Spezial tickets for IC/ICE travel from Cochem to the Harz and to Karlsruhe. Even if I spent an hour getting the tickets, I saved about $125. That's pretty good "pay" for an hours work. In fact, I probably spent no more time purchasing the Dauer -Spezial tickets than I would have spent buying a railpass, so my payback was infinite.

Lee - just to clarify respectfully, I was not discussing cost in that sentence, but the convenience of sending off for a couple of railpasses to the hassle - not of just purchasing the tickets trackside - but of going through the entire learning curve and hassle of planning and executing a trip by Laender Ticket and/or Dauer-Special ticket from Hamburg to Lübeck to Berlin to Frankfurt to Munich.

I travel as you do. I've saved all kinds of $ by doing so. And I applaud you for the information you provide regularly here and at your website. But the reason your knowledge is special is because of the hours you've invested in understanding the system. You understand that cheap tix mean you can't change your mind and that you can't head out on a Bayern ticket at 7 am, and you know where one Land stops and the next starts. The average traveler who's covering tons of ground, like Rhonda is, might find this all just too overwhelming for the $ benefit, but she'd have to go through a big learning curve and a lot of calculation to figure out how to save what probably are very few dollars.

Leaving Lübeck out of it for the moment, even Dauer-Spezial tix, if the cheapest version happens to be available for Rhonda's days of travel, are going to run about 90 Euros - or $120 - for 3 legs (Hamburg-Berlin-Frankfurt-Munich) providing the dollar remains strong. For $195, Rhonda can get a twinpass that includes a 4th travel day on high-speed equipment, which may be handy for a daytrip to Salzburg if they want to get an early start and make a long day of it. She'll have a hedge against dollar deflation and can stay an extra day here or there, or take a free spontaneous side trip on the same day she makes a major travel leg, altering her travel plans at whim. Arriving at the station and hopping on a train is simpler than fussing with ticket machines and credit cards. And there's something to be said for carrying one railpass instead of several different paper tickets.

OK, Russ. Point taken. I respect your opinion.

However, I still think that for those whose goal is to minimize expenses, and are willing to research the topic, organize their travel, and live with a few restrictions, there are options that save money vs a railpass.

And, BTW, Munich to Salzburg, round trip in a single day, on express trains (IC/EC), without start time restrictions, can be done for €29 round trip (less than a day of a twin pass), with a Freizeit-Ticket. These tickets are not train specific or limited in quantity, no pre-purchase is required, and they are available at all ticket automats. The only requirement is that the travel has to be completed by 3 AM the following morning.