Has anyone bought train tickets from www.bahn.com - DB Bahn? I just purchased our tickets for an overnight train for my husband and me but I’m concerned because my printed ticket doesn’t have his name on it, just mine. In fact, I wasn’t required to state his name at any point during the booking process. The ticket does state it is a ticket for a 2 double and the price reflects a two person ticket. As this is my first European train trip, I’m unsure whether or not train tickets are viewed similarly to airplane tickets and each passage’s name must be noted on the ticket in order for it to be valid. Should I be concerned? Thanks for the advice!
Posted by
White Bear Lake, MN, USA
479 posts
You should be fine. As long as your ticket is for 2 people, that's all they care about. Train tickets in Europe are more like tickets for a sporting event (where they only care that you have a ticket) rather than a plane ticket (where you're the only one who can use that ticket).
Posted by
Grafton, Mass, USA
23 posts
Jessica:
I'm curious about your experience purchasing tickets on bahn.de. I'm about to purchase tickets from Cologne to Copenhagen. I'm scared to death of dealing with a eurpoean website. I'm scared that the site will flip to German at some point after putting in my credit card number. I'm also concerned about ticket delivery. Did you print them at home? Did Die Bahn mail them to you?
I'm still a few days away from my 90 day window. I'd appreciate any replies.
Rick
Posted by
OP
Saint Paul, Minnesota
11 posts
Hi Rick,
I was also weary of using European websites to buy my tickets but the cost difference between DB Bahn, Thalys.com and the Rail Europe site forced my hand. The DB Bahn site was in English the whole way through although the tickets are in German. I printed the tickets on my home computer. The only thing to keep in mind is you must have the credit card you used to purchase the ticket with you when you use the tickets. I believe you can have the tickets mailed to you at your home address but the home print option is much easier.
Hope this helps and good luck!
Posted by
Grafton, Mass, USA
23 posts
Thanks! I have to deal with Thalys.com too, but I'm not too worried. A colleague of mine speaks fluent French. She as agreed to help me with the purhcase after hours.
I'm travling from London to Copenhagen by rail. I've got the London to Brussels Eurostar tickets. That was easy. Now just two more European railroads to deal with. Makes Amtrak look simple.
Rick
Posted by
Lakewood, Colorado
19092 posts
DB stands for Deutsche Bahn. Do you real mean to say "Deutsche Bahn Bahn" (German Rail Rail)?
Posted by
OP
Saint Paul, Minnesota
11 posts
If you go to their website it states DB Bahn in the upper right corner - http://www.bahn.de/international/view/en/index.shtml
Posted by
Lakewood, Colorado
19092 posts
Did you also notice that the DB is in a different color, red, and surrounded by a red rectangle. That is not text; it is the symbol for German Rail. "Bahn" is text, in black. Kind of reminds me of a flyer for Safeway that came in the mail a few days ago. At the top is the words "Safeway" (coincidently in black) followed by (in red) a large "S" in a circle. We don't say "Safeways" or "Safeway S" or "Safeway Safeway". No, we recognise the circle S as a symbol. Same for DB. So it is the Bahn website.
Posted by
Anchorage
157 posts
The "2 for less" special is just great through DB, no worries at all on names - as you have noted, they don't ask when you book, they don't care who you travel with.
Also if in Germany you can check out the Bayren Ticket which will allow five folks to travel, but we found that even for two of us travelling from Salzburg to Munich (and local U-Bahn) for a day was cheaper than two tickets.
When we printed out tickets a while ago, the site did switch over to German for a while, but you can always use http://www.freetranslation.com/ to get you over the rough spots!
Just note that these tickets are usually restricted to hours of travel and only for regional trains (RE, etc not ICE).