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Rail Ticket Purchasing

Posted by (Austin, TX) on

I'm in the process of trying to plan a month long trip for a family of four to Europe - hubby & I travelling with our teenage children. We plan to visit France, Germany, Austria and Italy (not necessarily in that order). After reading so much helpful information on this site, I think I've decided that it will be best to by point to point rail tickets for our trip. Since my 90 day window will be coming up soon, I want to make sure I fully understand how to do this. So, here goes:

  1. It seems we can get better fares by pre-purchasing our tickets. Is the cost savings significant on all routes or just the longer trips, such as Paris - Rome, Venice - Munich, etc.?
  2. If we don't pre-purchase tickets, is it easy to purchase tickets at the train station for shorter journeys, say within Germany or Italy? Do trains regularly sell out of tickets? I'd like to have our longer trips planned out but may want to throw in some day trips to close-by towns.
  3. How do we pre-purchase tickets within Italy, say Rome - Florence, if Trenitalia doesn't accept US credit cards?
  4. Are there any glitches to pre-purchasing tickets from the German bahn site (like not accepting credit cards or routing you to RailEurope)?
  5. If we're traveling say from Florence to Salzburg or Florence to Munich, can we use the bahn.de system or do we have to use trenitalia since the trip starts in Italy? Is there a benefit to using one system over the other?

Sorry for all the rambling questions! For a newbie, this is a very confusing process! I'm sure it will all make sense in the end, there just seems to be a very long learning curve and I can't seem to even get started.

Thanks!

Posted by
19240 posts

In Germany, Sparpreis (discount tickets start at €19 for short trips, €29 for longer trips, so obviously the savings is probably going to be greatest for longer trips, those with higher standard fares. You obviously wouldn't bother to get a Sparpreis fare for a trip with a less than €19 full fare.

My rule of thumb is only prepurchase tickets if you can save money by doing so. I've never had a problem with tickets being "sold out". I've been on trains where all seats were taken, but never where all seats were reserved. You could probably purchase tickets with reservations right up until train time and have a seat.

If you insist on reservations, there is a very slight advantage to purchasing full fare tickets online for Germany. German Rail Reservations are about half price when purchased with a ticket online vs at the ticket counter.

The Bahn doesn't route you to RailEurope, and their website in English is easy to use. Only French Rail tries to make North Americans use RailEurope, because they own it.

If there were a direct train from Florence to Munich, you could get you tickets from the Bahn, but I don't think there is (other than a night train that starts in Rome). However, you can pre-purchase the direct train (EC) from Bologna to Munich at a discount and purchase an Italian Rail ticket in Italy to get from Florence to Bologna, but those pre-purchased tickets are date and train specific, and non-refundable. If the Italian train is late and you miss the EC, you lose your ticket.

BTW, although you usually can't purchase tickets "online" between towns outside Germany, they will sell them to you by phone and mail them to you.

Posted by
19 posts

Thanks for helping to clear this up!

Lee, which tickets can I buy via phone with Bahn? Do they sell only tickets originating or ending in Germany? Do they speak English? Will they mail tickets to the US?

Posted by
19240 posts

I believe (never tried this) that they sell over the phone any ticket that you could buy at a ticket counter in Germany, which is tickets between any stations in Europe, not just in Germany.

I don't know if they always have English speaking assistants, but I think they do. I'm marginally fluent in German, but for complicated things I prefer English. The first time I called them (for information, not tickets) I asked, "Do you speak English". The girl said "Moment" and put me on hold for about five minutes. Then an English speaking operator came on the line. I could have asked in German and gotten an answer in less time. The second time I called, I said, "I can do this in German, but it is easier if you can speak English." She said, "German", so we did it in German. I don't know if I could have had an English speaking assistant that time, or not.

They do mail tickets to the U.S.

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