titus42

Any one familiar with the process that DB Bahn uses to make the tickets available to purchase on line? I thought it is 60 days the earliest.
I am traveling on January 02, 2015 from Budapest to Berlin. I attempted several times to finalize the process. I completed all steps from reservations in the overnight couchette from Budapest to Berlin. But at the very last step it gives me an error message. I am puzzled. Any ideas as to why this is happening?

Man_in_seat_61

The same reason this happened last year. And the year before that. And the year before that, etc etc ad infinitum.

December timetable change!

Bookings for German trains for dates 14 Oct to mid-Jan only opened yesterday. Anything involving Czech Rep and Hungary will be later, perhaps late Oct, perhaps early November,

Just wait, it cannot sell out, and plenty of cheap tickets will be available when it opens.

titus42

Thank You Man_in_seat_61.

You are correct. I even called the DB Bahn booking center in England and even they can not book me the tickets. Whats more interesting is that the ticket prices are shown for the overnight train, which by the way have increased two-fold since my first attempt on October 14.

I want to get the least expensive tickets (isn't 39Euro couchette pp?). I guess I need to be patience and wait till 02 November 03 Nov.

PalenQ

How did it work out after Nov 3rd? What did you pay for the overnight train?

Thanks

titus42

Hi Palenque. For the last 6-7 weeks I have been logging on to both sites just about every night, Bahn and also MAV but no luck. MAV states that no offer available and Bahn states states something similar.

Is it because the rates will change on or around December 14?

I have not given up yet but it is frustrating that I am not getting thru.

Cowboy1968

When did you get the error message?
I just tried a dummy booking and I got all options for seats or couchettes or compartments for the EN train, leaving Budapest Keleti at 20:05 hrs on Jan 2nd..
I got as far on the website as giving my credit card number - which I did not, obviously.
Did you ever get this "far"?

titus42

Hi Cowboy1968. Yes I do it every time when I go into the Bahn website and select the EN 476 train at 20:05 hrs. I follow each step up. This includes slecting the couchette option and after entering my credit card info, accept the conditions. But still I get an error message. Error message states "An error occurred during the booking process for the night train. Please Try again later".

Back when I started in I learned that I had to wait 60 days. Then ever since Nov 03 (60 days prior to 02 Jan)I have been "glued" to both the Bahn and MAV sites just every night. But no success.

Cowboy1968

That is really odd.
I think it's best to use the contact form on bahn.de website and tell them your problem.

I did not find any related stories like yours when searching the web.
What I did find, though, was some info on the composition of that specific night train.
Which seems to be somewhat complicated: some cars terminate in Prague, plus other cars coming from Vienna merge at Brno.
So the glitch could be that your desired seating or sleeping option does exist on some leg of EN 476, but not on the Budapest-Berlin leg. Which is just a wild guess..

But if everything does not work out, you can still check kayak.com for inexpensive airfare between Budapest and Berlin.

PalenQ

Maybe try emailing Man in Seat 61 at his commercial site - www.seat61.com - too bad he is not a Fodor regular but just pops in once in a while to boost his site (nothing against that!) or he could no doubt address your problem.

Diane

I've also been checking the bahn.de website regularly for the past month to book an overnight train from Prague to Amsterdam in mid-January. No luck - the train I want to take and seat pricing don't even show up on the website. Just to see if the timing was an issue, I tried a dummy booking for the month of December and was able to see both the train and price.

I think this must have something to do with schedule changes in mid-December that will impact trips after the first of the year.

Diane

PalenQ

I think there has been talk of eliminating some night trains to Amsterdam - maybe the fate of that train has not been decided yet. Check www.seat61.com for updates.

titus42

Hello - Checking in folks. Thanks to all for the kind replies . I must agree that I have been baffled by the process and my inability to book tickets in the Bahn webiste. I did however was able to book them on the MAV Hungarian train site

I had been very frustrated that as of last weekend (Dec 05-Dec 07) I stopped checking every night. So then on Mondayin Dec 08 I checked again at the Bahn site and guess what? Every step seemed like it was working and was able to enter my credit card number etc etc. I did not get the same message as mentioned above, but it told me that the 4 couchete cabin was not available anymore. So I called the UK phone number right away. This time the bahn employee on the phone confirmed that the 4 couchete cabin was gone but the 6 couchete was available for 450 UK pounds. I could not believe it. Did I missed the window opportunity just over the weekend to buy the couchete I wanted so bad to reserve for the last 60 days? The lady mentioned that the Hungarian train company released the seats some time a few days ago. - I wanted to knock myself out when I heard that. I did not buy the tickets with the bahn office in the UK so I went to the MAV website and I was able to book four couchettes there for much less what the lady in the UK as selling them for. I did not however got this tickets for the lowest fare. My conclusion is that this was very very frustrating process.

PalenQ

Ah yeh it ain't like it was for years - Train from A to X = $flat fare - based on kilometres travelled and that was it - could buy the ticket anytime and it would be the same fare (for appropriate first or second class) - it was so so easy but also quite expensive as state-owned monopolies run by lazy workers in unions conspired to keep fares high.

It's better for consumer now pricewise but can be a minefield to dodge thru getting that great discounted fare.