Purchasing train tickets stateside using GoEuro.com

I can't answer your question, but I don't see any particular advantage in not buying these tickets right from the source - the company that operates the trains.

For Germany, buy direct from Bahn http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en, following Rick's tutorial: http://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/transportation/trains/online-schedules. You get a PDF that you print out; it may say you need A4 paper, but 8.5 x 11 works fine. On the train, you hand the printout and the credit card you used to buy it to the conductor. They scan the PDF, swipe your credit card, and you're set.

For Spain, it's not as simple, but as long as you use PayPal, you can get the Renfe site to work (don't even waste the time of trying it without PayPal). However, you WILL need this tutorial from TripAdvisor: http://tinyurl.com/cu48wk5. Again, you get a printout that is scanned on the train (I didn't have to show the credit card).

All of the above is for tickets that have discounts for advance purchase. Depending on where you're going in Germany, there are various offers that don't need advance purchase, and can be bought easily from machines while there. This applies to some Spain tickets as well. If you post your routes, people can help you figure out exactly which tickets will be the best value, and then you can figure out if you need to buy them in advance.

Never heard of them. But I agree with Harold, why buy anywhere but the company running the trains, or in a few cases a local agent?
If you want to buy rail tickets, read this page first: http://seat61.com/Europe-train-tickets.htm
Then read the rest of that website. It is the best source of info on rail travel on the net. Beware resellers that only offer a limited selection of tickets with a mark-up. Especially if they don't even say where they are based or give an address.

From what I can see, for Deutsche Bahn tickets, GoEuro simply redirects you to the DB website when you go to book a ticket. Go Euro does give a price in USD at a rough equivalent to the EUR-USD exchange rate.
I did not go any further to see if there was a service fee add-on.
Could be useful for Renfe tickets, if you don't want to jump through the Paypal process.

Thank you very much. Your help is greatly appreciated.....Mike

GoEuro.com is obviously a third party seller so I don't know why you would go through a third party when you can deal so easily with the rail company directly.

A lot of people at this forum use www.capitainetrain.com to buy tickets, so I see no reason not to use a third party reseller. Main reason for Capitainetrain is the credit card payment procedures are much more straight forward. But Capitainetrain was more or less vetted by Mr. Smith at Seat61. Capitainetrain only sells Renfe-SNCF tickets, not Renfe. GoEuro is just an unknown quantity at this point. They appear to be located in Berlin.

People often say the Renfe site doesn't work for them but I've been able to use my credit card there successfully in the past, and just today I joined the crowd by having the site not take my transaction, so as advised here and in many other spots, I used Paypal.
Went through easily, and was able to get both .pdf tickets and Apple Passbook (now called Wallet) tickets.
Interesting thing was that at the same time I was looking for the tickets on RailEurope through the RS link and that one was telling me my route was not yet available....

GoEuro obviously only want to put you on the most expensive express trains..

When I put in Munich to Salzburg, RT, for two on Saturday, April 9, it returns the cheapest fare as 76€. That's four Savings Fare tickets at 19€ each, two out, two returning. That's for a RailJet, an express train, and the website says that is the cheapest.

GoEuro doesn't show the option Meridian regional trains. Using a Guten-Tag-Ticket, Meridian's version of a Bayern-Ticket (valid only on Meridian trains), your fare would actually be 26€ for two people round trip in a day.

The Meridian trains might be a little slower, but you can take any train. The fare quoted on GoEuro is a train specific fare.

GoEuro also doesn't understand the round trip feature of the regional passes. Apparently it wants to sell a separate ticket for each direction.

When I put in Munich to Mittenwald, round trip, for two on the same Saturday, it returns that the cheapest fare is 46€ (2x 23€ "Savings Fare" tickets).

The Bahn shows the price for all day unlimited travel on that route (including round trip) as 23€ for a Werdenfels-Ticket.

In the second case, using the Bahn website, you would have been offered the less expensive Werdenfels-Ticket. In the first case, the Bahn website would have offered you a 28€ Bayern-Ticket for two; it wouldn't have offered the Meridian Guten-Tag-Ticket. I just happened to know about that one.

So you are better off using the Bahn website. GoEuro can give you bad information.

I've just discovered another case where GoEuro gives you bad information; they don't understand fares in a Verkehrsverbund.

The Bahn website does not show a regional fare from FRA to Bacharach, because these tickets are only sold by the local metro district, in this case RMV. The Bahn only show a more expensive ticket using an express train (in this case an IC to Bingen). The Bahn fare using an IC to Bingen is 35€ for two people. However, the RMV sells a ticet to Bacharach using regional trains for 23,60€ (11,80€ per person).

BTW, in the past, I have not used Captaintrain because I can't just go on the site and get information. I first have to establish an account and, to do that, I have to give them my email address. I don't like to give out private information just to get fare information that they should be showing me to get my business (Note: the Bahn does not require your email address to give you fare info, why should CT). Anyway, today I established an account with captaintrain using a throwaway email.

My observation: CaptainTrain is only a little better than GoEuro. They failed on two of my three tests.

For Munich to Salzburg RT, for two, they also only offered non-refundable, train specific Saving Fare tickets for 76€ on the express trains; they did not offer the 26€ Meridian Guten-Tag-Ticket, or even a 28€ Bayern-Ticket.

For Munich to Mittenwald RT, they did offer just one Werdenfels ticket for all day, at 23€, like the Bahn, unlike GoEuro, which wanted you to buy separate Werdenfels-Ticket, out and return.

Finally, for FRA to Bacharach, one way for two, they only offered a train specific Savings Fare ticket at 38€, instead of an RMV ticket for 23,60€, or even the 35€ fare offered by GoEuro.