Hello, We are traveling through Europe in September and our planning on buying point-to-point train tickets (for trips in England, France and Germany). When purchasing tickets online, we have the option of mailing the tickets to our US home, or we are able to print them off at a train ticket kiosk in the train station by using the card that paid for them....are these the type of machines that do not work well with American debit cards due to the PIN/chip issue? Does anyone have any experience with this? Thank you!
Posted by
Lakewood, Colorado
19274 posts
For Germany, of course, all three. (1)If you buy them from home well in advance of leaving, you can have them mailed (for €3,50). (2)Better yet they will almost immediately send you a pdf file that you can print out before you go. You can also save the pdf file on a flash drive to print out over there if something were to happen to the first copy. I believe (3) you can also print it there on an automat. According to the Bahn website, the 2nd generation Bahn automats can read magnetic strip cards.
Posted by
Atlanta
1358 posts
I just used my magnetic strip credit card (not debit, mind you) at DB kiosks without a problem. For the tickets I bought ahead of time, tho, I printed out the PDF ahead of time and took it with me. I always bring a folder with hard copies of reservations, so I tuck it in with that. You do need a hard copy on the train, they won't take electronic versions.
Posted by
Chicago
2876 posts
Electronic ticket kiosks in France (at least every one I've ever seen) are chip-and-pin only, but all you have to do is go to a manned ticket window in any SNCF station or - if available where you are - an SNCF boutique.