The Rail Europe Myth???

The automatic posts on here that "Rail Europe" is always higher are not right is the point I was trying to make. Sure it can be higher, but as I show in my post so can the local trains If I had been going to Frankfurt I would have checked the German train sites, but since I wasn't the companies that sold tickets on my route were the "important" ones. So it's "myth" that it's ALWAYS higher and to post and tell folks that may result in people overpaying for thier train fares.

Good idea to check all your options carefully. I have been posting for some time now (almost a year) that Rail Europe prices for tickets in Italy (and only Italy) are often within a dollor or two of the prices listed on Trenitalia (minus the discounts, which are not passed on by RE.) Every ticket I actually priced cam out that way. Considering the foreign transaction fee charged on many users' credit cards, the RE price often comes out slightly cheaper. But again, this is for ticket in ITALY. I priced tickets in Spain and found RE prices to be somewhat higher than the Renfe regular prices, and much much higher than the web fares tha you can get on the Renfe website. So it's not a good option for Spain tickets. Others have reported significantly higher prices for RE tickets in France and Germany. So the disparity appears to be country-by-country. And it seems that RE never offers the often deep discounts that one can get by buying in advance on the web from the national websites. But I still say it's a good option for Italy. And Carol discovered it can work for Eurostar tickets as well.

Rail Europe charges at least $147 for an ICE from Frankfurt airport to Munich Hbf. Other trains, going between the same stations in the same time can be from $165 to $177. Online, from the Bahn, if you use a 1% credit card, which I have, the same trains are $133.99, with reservation. If you choose to use a slightly slower IC, the fare is $108.20. The $134 Bahn ticket is actually a $130 fully flexible ticket with a $3.60 reservation. If your plane is too late, you can use the ticket for the next train. A new reservation is $6.50. With RE, you can only buy a new ticket at the station and hope to get up to $115 back when you get home. But if you order in advance, the Sparpreis fare, with a reservation, is $45.14. The advance purchase Sparpreis fare is actually the closest option to the Rail Europe ticket. If you cancel the Sparpreis ticket before the day of travel, there is a €15 ($22) charge. If you cancel RE ticket before the day of travel, there is a 15% cancellation charge plus a 7% administration fee, 22% x $147 is $32 at the least. If you miss the train with a Sparpreis ticket, you are out $45, but with the RE ticket, if you can get the ticket stamped not used at FRA, you pay the $32 cancellation and admin fee. If not you get no refund. So, $147 and up from Rail Europe vs $45 from the Bahn. It's no myth.

OK, would you settle for " almost always higher" or " in most cases higher"? How about " often a whole lot higher"? 2nd class ticket from Salzburg to Vienna is €47,50 ($68.44) on the Austrian Rail website, $89 on the Rail Europe website. I just looked up Frankfurt to Berlin. On the Bahn, the standard fare, which is full flexible, is €116 ($166.24). A reservation is €2,50 ($3.60) with the ticket. R/E charges $241 for the same trip with a reservation. And, if you book early enough in advance, you can get the $45 Sparpreis fare (with reservation) for essentially equivalent tickets. $45 vs $241! In 2008, I bought Sparpreis tickets (then called Dauer Spezial) from Cochem to Köln to Bad Harzburg and from Walkenried to Göttinen to Karlsruhe for €63, $89.38. On Rail Europe those ticket would have been $325, and since they don't recognize Walkenried, I only would have had a ticket for Göttingen to Karlsruhe and would have had to pay extra (€11,35) for Walkenried to Göttingen.

I just made a price check on a ticket I actually purchased in January for use this month. One way Madrid to Valencia second class.
Rail Europe wants USD 115 plus USD 18 shipping. I saw no option for email printing, but I did not select the "purchase" tab to go any further. A Spanish travel agency site, rumbo.es priced the ticket at EURO 59 which would be about USD 84. The renfe site was at EURO 48, or USD 68. I paid USD 41, but that was just within the 60 day time frame. Since I have no experience buying tickets for other destinations I can't say if this is typical across the board, but it does show that checking multiple sources is the thing to do.

I really think more people here took issue with the fact that Rail Europe does not post all possible routes/trains. While it may not be more expensive in some instances, you definitely want to consult the national rail websites to make sure there isn't a more convenient (and possibly cheaper) route available that is not showing up on Rail Europe.

It's important to note that the fares posted by Carol are for non-refundable, non-exchangeable 2nd-class tickets for certain trains during the day. Many travelers are comfortable with such fares since they offer significant savings over exchangeable, refundable fares. But for flexible tickets, Rail Europe is significantly higher at $353 compared to tgv.europe at €155 or about $244 at today's exchange rate (using Great Britain as the home country). This latter discrepancy is the source of all the anger and mistrust with Rail Europe. Unsuspecting Americans are charged more than any other nationality simply because RE can get away with it. But when people learn about the overcharge, they are outraged. It's good to see that RE no longer imposes a mandatory $18 "delivery fee" for mailing paper tickets. Perhaps they've figured out from threads such as these that people are getting onto them. I agree that it's wise to make comparisons. With all the sharks out there, it's the intelligent thing to do.

"It's good to see that RE no longer imposes a mandatory $18 "delivery fee" for mailing paper tickets." Only three days later...there's an $18 S&H charge on RE (UNLESS I'm buying nearly $400 in tickets). Perhaps they're realized that all are not RE sheep; some of us (quickly turning into a whole BUNCH of us) actually surf around a bit and cost-compare...And perhaps RE offers e-tickets more often than previously reported by other posters - hence, no $18 S&H now... WATCH OUT that you don't compare apples (Euro/most European websites) to oranges (US$/RE)... AND to throw another log on the fire, Frank II has introduced to us (3/21/2011) another source of European tickets from "BootsnAll"- aimed at those pesky Italians that play hard-to-get: http://bit.ly/hPUbUQ THEY email e-tickets to you IF the trip is wholly within Italy; otherwise, it requires paper tickets (at this point I got an error message; all other queries kicked me over to RE...). Still, it's a great start. AND Italian Rail Passes, for some, were BRIEFLY a good deal again, until the MINI fares came around... No rest for the weary...