train travel

If you book well in advance and get discount fares, it's cheaper to buy point-to-point tickets. However, those tickets are non-exchangeable and non-refundable so you need to be able to commit to specific departure dates and times. What are your routes and what are your travel dates?

That depends entirely on the route and trains you take. You can't just make a blanket statement; you have to do the hard work. If you make megaleaps, it might be less expensive with a rail pass. If you take short hops and see a lot of things in between, it's probably less with point-point tickets. If you are willing to commit to non-refundable purchase ahead tickets you can almost always save money vs. a rail pass.

Keep in mind that it only takes missing one of those prepaid non-refundable trips to lose all of the money you thought you were saving. The peace of mind of being flexible and not tied into an exact schedule for me, at least, is worth the small amount more the PtP tickets cost.

I find the saving to be worth the extra commitment. In 2008 I got tickets that would have cost me €181 ($228 at todays exchange rate) point-point (from the Bahn, more from R/E) for €63 ($80) with Sparpreis (then Dauer-Spezial) tickets.

In 10 years of European travel, I have never failed to be on a train I planned to be on.

BTW, I also buy non-refundable air tickets, too.

Also note, that with RailEurope's 22% penalty for returning tickets (plus non-refundable reservation fees), you'll often lose more by returning an R/E ticket than you lose by just not using a Sparpreis ticket. And Sparpreis tickets are refundable up to the day before travel for a €15 fee.