I am trying to build a comparison of a eurailpass and point to point tickets. I am searching on tgv-europe & bahn.de but using a date in March. My trip is in May & we are currently planning Barcelona - France - Munich. Should I assume that train fare will increase due to it being a more popular time? If so, how much do you think would be reasonable, extra 10,30, 50%?
Posted by
Tresana, Highlands Ranch, CO, USA
23626 posts
My experience is that fares do not increase at popular times like US air fares. There generally is a price adjustment -- increase -- each year around the first of the year. But your March fare should be the same as May. However, they are getting more creative with discounts and at popular times the discounted seats will go faster.
Posted by
Lakewood, Colorado
19274 posts
Full fare tickets in Europe are generally set in December for the next year. The price, in Euro, shouldn't change. However, the exchange rate varies, so tickets could be more (or less) expensive in US$. If there are big change in the exchange rate, the price of Eurail passes can be adjusted at any time.
For German travel, there are many "always available" special fares, such as the Schoenes-Wochenende (weekend) fare and Laender-Tickets that will not change in price.
According to the German language section of Bahn.de, the weekday regional train pass, the Quer-durchs-Land-Ticket will only last through Jan 31,2010, but they are still showing it on the schedule site through Feb 12. I don't know if they will continue it after that.
I don't expect DB to raise the prices for the various levels on the advance purchase, one-way SparPreis (former Dauer-Spezial) fares, but as rail travel gets more popular with the season, tickets at the lower price levels will sell out further in advance. The round trip SparPreis tickets will still be at 25% and 50% discount, although they can also sell out.