Rail Europe

Two problems: - As you mention they charge more
- Limited inventory of potential routes/times (to me this is the greater sin)

The "contempt" is not universal. Read the posts in the boot section where I show that RE prices for tickets IN Italy ( and only Italy as far as I can tell) are within pennies of the price of a ticket bought from Trenitalia-and actually less is you use a credit card with foreign transaction fees for the Trenitalia purpose. Yes, there is still a handling charge if your purchase does not meet a minimum amount. And they do pass on the advance purchase mini fares. This doesn't mean they are OK for all purposes and I am not saying that. RailEurope should NOT be used for finding fares and schedules in general Use each country's own rail website for that, or Bahn.de or rail.ch for Europe- wide schedules. For ticket purchase one should always the national rail website first, or wait and buy tickets there. But IF you need advance tickets in Italy, and cannot get the purchase to go through on Trenitalia, the RE is a viable option. Note that people have been having better luck on Trenitalia lately.

I think you are reading too much into the comments. I don't see the same passion or hate that you do. IMO, many posters on this site try to follow a low key, economic (I don't mean cheap) approach to travel by getting the best bang for their hard earned bucks. For example you didn't see much discussion here about using 4 and 5 star hotels or lot of discussion about organized tours which is more common on other travel sites. When it comes to Rail Europe, they are big advertising supporters of the Rick Steves programs, heavily marketed to the North American, and the impression as the first place to go for European train travel. And before the days of the internet you didn't have much choice about using them. When new posters come to this site with questions and advertising induces perceptions about Rail Europe, the experienced travelers are quick to point out the limitations to using Rail Europe as a rail travel source. Nothing wrong with that especially if trying to save a little money. But if you are comfortable with their pricing levels, service provided, and understand the limitations of RE's offerings, then use them. Someone needs to keep them in business. No one here is saying that you cannot or should use them. Just some of us, based on actual experience, think they are better deals elsewhere.

For people wanting tickets for Germany (or trains starting or ending in Germany), I definitely advise them to use German Rail rather than RailEurope, not because I dislike RailEurope, but it will cost them less. German Rail charges you the same price online for full fare as you would pay at the counter over there and sends you the ticket immediately via a pdf file. RailEurope charges more for the full fare ticket plus $18 for 2-3 day delivery, $36 for next day delivery (which still is not as fast as DBs pdf file). For German tickets, I don't see that RailEurope provides any better service than German Rail. German Rail charges the same (€91 or $125.50) for trains to Munich from either Frankfurt Hbf or FRA. RailEurope charges $143 from the Hbf, but $172 from the airport. That's almost $50 (37%) more from the airport than what German Rail charges. For marking the tickets up by more from the airport, I do despise them. Also, although RailEurope is owned by French Rail, they charge more for tickets for travel in France than SNCF does at the counter over there. And, unless you know the secret, Americans can't buy the lower priced tickets from SNCF. As soon as you indicate that you're from the U.S., they reroute you to Rail Europe and their higher prices.

I wouldn't call it "contempt", but... All the national rail companies have on-line service that is as good as (and the same price as) buying your tickets from the window in Europe. Quite simply, Rail Europe is an unnecessary middle-man at best, a ticket scalper at worst.

First of all, going through Rail Europe isn't necessary, especially if you don't take night trains or want to reserve a sleeper or couchette. If your travelling by train is limited to Austria, France, and Germany, or Poland, you don't need Rail Europe. I don't take a night train so often, and but when I do, no need for a couchette/sleeper, which means I don't need their overpriced services. As long as you know the geography, trunk lines, junction points, crossing points, have a sufficiently detailed rail map of Europe and Germany, you don't need their services. I didn't care for their customer service...one time...that was it. Ticket scalpers, yes and money grubbers.

The objection to Rail Europe is that Americans are singled out for special, meaning higher, fares than are charged to any other nationality. If you go on to http://www.tgv-europe.com/en/ which is the French SNCF website, by choosing USA as your home country you are automatically directed to Rail Europe and higher fares. Any other country's residents get access to SNCF's normal fare schedule. The way to beat this scam is to choose a country other than US, e.g. Great Britain, when booking tickets. Now it appears that printing tickets at home is available from SNCF on any ticket. Rail Europe charges a hefty "delivery fee" on top of higher fares. This special treatment (abuse) of Americans is the source of the anger toward Rail Europe.

Guess it depends. In Australia the fares offerd by rail europe are very limited compared with going to b-europe.com. I was getting pricecs from Prague to Paris and due to a Thalys train being no longer available only got as far as Cologne. From there Re offered only a $255 alternative. I managed to reroute and get the tickets ticketless by ringing the above for $75 and one hour shorter trip. Also on the prague to Cologne overnight I could only book 6 seater couchettes with RE. I managed to get 4 seater couchettes for a great deal cheaper elsewhere. I would carefully look a lot of other places first before I used them AND you cannot find a phone number to talk to a real person. At b-europe you can speak to a very pleasant efficient english speaking person for 0.3 euros a minute. I'm a novice but have learnt a lot in the last few weeks re train travel. I know more now than travel agents who are limited to one booking company. Ticketless booked online from the country of travel is the way to go and it's great to have the tickets all done before one leaves home.

I wouldn't buy from RailEurope because I don't want to pay for another layer of unneeded help. Admittedly I did purchase a Eurostar London->Paris ticket once WAYYYY back when. I filled out everything on the RE site including credit card and received my confirmation. About 2 weeks later I get an email saying the ticket I purchased was no longer available and my only alternative was (yadayada). You can't trust that what you see and pay for is what you'll actually get.