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Purchasing German/Swiss train ticket

When I go to purchase a Cologne to Lasaunne train ticket on the German site,
it states that it does not include the Swiss part of the trip. Must I purchase this part of the trip from the Swiss train site?

Posted by
47 posts

I don't believe so. I recently purchased Lauterbrunnen to Heidelberg tickets from the DB Bahn website without a problem.

Posted by
19240 posts

How do you do that?

When I enter "Köln" to "Lausanne" I get a lot of connections with standard fares shown as well as discounted fares as low as €39, per person.

What date are you using? Are you using a 'via'?

It can't be your spelling of Lausanne, because Lasaunne doesn't exist.

Posted by
47 posts

I also saw the same thing as Lee when I looked on the website. I even typed it in as Cologne and it changed it to Koln automatically, so that also shouldn't be the problem.

Posted by
3 posts

I spell the city correctly on the train web site. I am looking at Koln to
Lausanne on Aug 8th around 10AM.

Posted by
19240 posts

"I spell the city correctly on the train web site. I am looking at Koln to Lausanne"

Great! Humor, right? "I spell the city correctly." Köln is the correct spelling; Koeln can also be used. Cologne is some kind of foreign abomination, but recognized nevertheless. Fortunately DB even has an ignorance algorithm and will accept Koln, even though it is an incorrect spelling. The Bahn website even accepts "Keulen", which is Dutch.

No matter what the spelling, if you put in 08.08.10 and 10:00, German Rail still shows a connection leaving Köln at 9:55, 2 changes arriving Lausanne at 16:15. Full fare is shown (all parts, not just Germany) and is €148, and there is a Savings fare starting at €39.

There is a connection leaving Köln at 12:43 on Thalys. DB does not "code share" online with Thalys; it says "Total fare cannot be calculated".

Usually, when the connection includes a portion for which the Bahn does not sell tickets online, it says, "unknown trarif abroad". The only time I know of when it says "DB part only" is when the connection includes a bus or local transportation.

Posted by
19240 posts

Koln is not Köln.

You can also use Koeln

Yes the German Rail website accepts it, but it accepts many misspellings, as well as foreign spellings. If you input any of these, ie Koln, it changes it to the proper spelling, Köln.

And, Vienna is Wien, pronounced Vēn.