Help with booking Munich - Amsterdam night train

I know of no European railroad website that books night train reservations online. This is one of the best kept secrets of railpasses - night train reservations are difficult (and expensive) to come by from over here.

I would not suggest waiting until you get over there. Those trains often sell out a month or more in advance, particularly during popular travel times.

You can call CNL directly in Germany (they should have English speaking operators, but you might get put on hold for a few minutes). The number is +49 1805 14 15 14.

You can get a "complete" reservation, rail + supplement online right now on a Europa-Spezial Niederlande fare for $194 (2 P in C6) without using a day of your railpass.

This is one reason I tell people to check out all the ramifications (like cost and availability of reservations) before committing to a railpass.

lol I knew that last sentence (from Lee) would slip in there somewhere. Yes, I understand that rail passes rarely pay off. Yes, I understand that you are adamently against them. I spent months with spreadsheets and decided that for us, travellers who are complete novices to Europe and its extensive train system, a single global saver pass was only slightly more costly than in-Euorpe priced P2P tickets, but ultimately, much more desirable (for us, in the context of this trip) from a convenience standpoint. Yes, I am pretty sure that on our next trip, we will feel more confident about handling several separate tickets and in-Europe bookings. Just not this time.

I was really hoping it would be possible to book through a European website, especially since it was so simple through the Swiss system. Hmm.

Thank you (genuinely) though, for advising to book asap. So far it looks like the only option is to bite the bullet with RailEurope. Thanks also for the ticket deal information, but we actually want to use a pass day for this leg (and it ends up very comparable cost-wise).

If anyone else has futher suggestions, I would very much welcome them!

Rail Europe is not your only option. As Lee explained, you can buy your sleeping accommodation supplement for the price of an international phone call to the CNL number he gave you. You just can't do it online.

Tim, are you sure it's possible through the phone from Canada? Would I be able to place my order and then just pick up the supplements at a German rail station--no shipping fee or anything?

In some cases, German Rail will email you a PDF file which you can print out at home. In other cases they will mail you the tickets in about a week for a fee of €3,50.

Have you tried making the Munich-Amsterdam night train reservations through Swiss Rail website?

It turns out that you can book reservations only on bahn.de for the Munich-Amsterdam night train! Click on "Check on availability" for the night train on the date of your choice. Then scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on "Book only extra charge." One of the choices listed will be "Rail pass offer."

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Tim!! Your instructions work perfectly--and they'll mail them out for only 3.5 Euros! I can't express my gratitude enough.

Tim, Great catch! I've looked at those screens so many times and never noticed that before. Maybe, because I wasn't really buying a ticket, I just never scrolled down far enough, or maybe it's new (?), but this opens up a whole new world of possibilities. BTW, it not only works on the Bahn schedule page, but on the CNL page as well.

There was a time, several years ago, that the CNL website had "Aufpreis" as one of the columns along with "Global Preis" and "SparNight Preis", but when they were incorporated into the Bahn site, that option disappeared.

Update: Interesting, on the Bahn website, on the page for all trains, as well as on the page for just CNL trains, that (online booking of reservations only) only works for night trains with one end of your trip in Germany. It worked for Amsterdam to Basel Bad Bhf, but not for the same train from Amsterdam to Zurich. It also worked for Frankfurt to Prague, but not for Zurich to Prague on the same train.