Overnight train from AMS to Prague

What site were you using? How were you spelling the cities - - not with airport codes or abbreviations, hopefully?

Might be your CC as we had that issue when trying to purchase our train pass with Eurail. We called our bank and then we tried again and it went through. Although, we ended up with a pre-authorization on our card from the first attempt that made it looked like we had another $1700 pending charge on our account. After many phone calls we were able to get the bank to remove the charge.

I suspect you are trying to book that train on the Bahn (CNL) website. I see two potential problem. One, you cannot book trains on that website if they start and end outside Germany. Two, you usually cannot book segments (AMS to Amsterdam Centraal) which are entirely outside Germany. Try booking that train from Amsterdam Central. That train stops in Bad Schandau, the last station in Germany. You should be able to book that train from Amsterdam Centraal to Bad Schandau. After further review, it looks like that train can be booked from Amsterdam Centraal to Prague (at one time it could only be booked for a segment ending in Germany).

"... One, you cannot book trains on that website if they start and end outside Germany...." Not so. DB makes an exception for City Nightline trains. I've booked a bunch of CNL journeys via rail.de and all of them have been outside Germany; departure & arrival.

We went through this with exactly that train a few years ago, and, as I say above, at that time it could only be booked for a segment ending in Germany. After I posted originally, I checked just to make sure it was still true and found out what you (Michael) are saying. So the problem is probably that the booking starts with a segment (Schiphol airport to Amsterdam Centraal) entirely outside Germany. If you start with Schiphol, it will give you a routing, but it doesn't go to Centraal, but takes an IC from Schiphol to a town on the German border, still in Netherlands, but maybe a "border" station for the Bahn. However, routing problems should just result in a connection not being shown, not an "error" message as described. Sounds more like a credit card problem.

Hi, Which route do you want to take? Any particular preference as to which city you want trasfer in? This ride Amsterdam-Prague is one you can tailor yourself. I myself would go (day) Amsterdam-Duisburg-Berlin-Prague on the ICE and EC trains. For night Amsterdam-Berlin on the CNL, transfer to an EC Berlin-Prague direct.

"For night Amsterdam-Berlin on the CNL, transfer to an EC Berlin-Prague direct." The Amsterdam to Berlin CNL train stops in Berlin at 4:25, then goes on to Prague (9:26). You've paid for the accommodations all the way to Prague; why get off so early. And the next EC gets to Prague two hours later than that CNL train.