1. Are the tickets dated so they must be used on a specific day?

2. If so, can they be purchased 1, 2, 3 days in advance?

Robespierre, I am surprised--you are visiting the land of the "Herrenvolk" as you called it in one of your posts?

What post?

Do you know the answers to my questions, or not?

When I've used these in Germany, I have only purchased them on the day of travel.

However, they are available online, and therefore advanced purchase must be possible. The online order form asks for the date of travel, from which I assume that the travel date is printed on the ticket (unlike many local transportation tickets which are blank when purchased but you must date-stamp them in a machine before boarding the transportation).

I investigated the purchase of a Bayern Ticket only because I will be wanting one in a few weeks.

As nearly as I can tell you must specify the date on which you want to travel. I just followed the on-line purchase process for a Bayern Ticket to the point I had to buy it before bailing out. The "bail point" was the specification of the travel date by day, month, and year.

From that information, I concluded that the ticket is specifically dated.

Based on what I just learned, I would not buy one in advance at all. The tickets are too easily obtained from an automatic vending machine just before you get on the train.

I see no real reason to buy in advance other than you have it in your hand before you reach the station. If you buy in advance and your plans change, then could be stuck with a ticket that cannot be used and is also not refundable.

Where refunds are concerned, I think this is the key phrase:

Rückgabe, Umtausch und Erstattung nicht benutzter Tickets sowie platzreservierung und 1.-Klasse-Fahrten sind ausgeschlossen.

Basically it says that returns, exchanges, and refunds of unused tickets as well as seat reservations and first class travel are barred. [with the Bayern ticket of course]

Not sure I know the full difference between a Rückgabe and an Erstattung, but they both mean you don't get your money back after you buy the ticket.

So given the constraints and the purchase opportunities, I will wait to buy my ticket until I am in the station.

"I see no real reason to buy in advance other than you have it in your hand before you reach the station."

Well, I'm chronically cheap. So I want to use my Länder-tickets to get from my hotel to the Hbf - a 20-minute, €2.30 ride by VRS included in the price. For two of us using tickets on four days, that amounts to €18.40 that I'd rather spend on beer. (And Mme. Robespierre on chocolate.)

Well if you know your travel dates, then the Deutsche Bahn website will sell you any of the "Länder" tickets in exchange for a credit card number.

I registered my credit card last year when I set up my account and I then printed out my tickets from Munich to Basel last year before I left home. I was restricted to one specific train and one specific date, but my plans were set and I took the risk.

I did have to present the same credit card for verification on the train. The conductor scanned what I had printed and punched it like it was a ticket bought at the ticket window.

The option was to pay full price which was double what I paid.

But, how do you get to the hotel in the first place without having the chance to buy a local ticket??

The Bayern Ticket and its analogs in other German states are great bargains.
I have lookd at several of them in terms of price and they do offer ample opportunities for reduced-fare travel.

Many of the places to which a Länder ticket will take you are not served by ICE or EC trains anyhow, so there is minimal time penalty for taking an RE or similar train.

The day we took one from Munich to Salzburg was interesting because we had a chance to see how people coped with their daily transportation problems.

"But, how do you get to the hotel in the first place without having the chance to buy a local ticket??"

First three days: Bonn WelcomeCard includes airport and local transport

Next three days: Rein-Pfalz Länder-tickets

Next day: SchönerTagTicket Nordrhein-Westfalen

Last two days: Köln WelcomeCard

I will keep that in mind. Sounds like a bargain. Munich have anything like that?

Alas - it looks like Munich called it quits.

http://www.muenchen.de/Rathaus/touri...lcomecard.html

By "lurking" in this thread I have learned a lot.

Thanks Robespierre for asking these questions. You have been of great assistance without realizing. Thanks to bob_brown, you have helped in other threads directly and here indirectly.

My point is that you'll many times find answers to your questions by reading through other's posts.

MvK

The Länder Tickets are indeed printed with the date of validity. On a number of occasions, I have purchased a Land Ticket for that day from a Verkehrverbund automat at an outlying S-Bahn station. You don't have to wait until you get to the Hbf to buy one.

“So I want to use my Länder-tickets to get from my hotel to the Hbf.”

According to the website for the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Sieg (www.vrsinfo.de), you can purchase the NRW SchönerTag Ticket at any DB automat, most automats of the various transit companies in the NRW, or from the bus driver. Literally, anyplace you can buy a single trip ticket to get to the Hbf, you can also buy a day ticket for that Land.

One of the last times I bought one of these tickets, it was a Schönes-Wochenende Tickets from a local (Nahverkehr) automat. It was a Friday, but I wanted to buy the ticket for the next day because I wasn't sure I would have time when I got to the station the next day. I pressed the button for Schönes-Wochenende, and the display asked if I wanted Saturday or Sunday. I can’t remember exactly, but I probably had to press a number on the keypad to indicate my choice.

I know that the red/white/blue DB automats have a touch pad for S-W or Länder tickets. If you touch the S-W ticket touch pad, it gives you the choice of the next Saturday, Sunday, or another date (which it will ask you to input). I would assume selecting a Land Ticket gives you a similar choice.

According to the MVV (Munich) website, S-W and Bayern Tickets purchased from their automats in U-Bahn stations will not have the date printed and will have to be cancelled (entwerten) in the station. Tickets from automats in S-Bahn station will have the date printed on them and do not have to be cancelled. I would assume the same thing to be true in other VV.

larry - thanks for the great information. Do you happen to know if VRS adheres to the "09:00 start time" restriction of the DB Laender-Tickets and SchoenerTagTickets?

On a couple of occasions, we'd like to be at the train station at a few minutes past 9 to squeeze through a 1-hour window on another connection - but if we don't get on the bus to the station until 9, we'll miss the window.

>Do you happen to know if VRS adheres to the "09:00 start time" restriction

Yes, see quote from their site:

Geltungsdauer: montags bis freitags 9 Uhr bis Betriebsschluss, an Wochenenden und Feiertagen ganztägig, beliebig viele Fahrten

The "Munich Welcome Card" is now the "CityTourCard".
http://www.meinmuenchen.de/

Thanks for the steer, logos. All in all, I think just paying the bus fare is the most reasonable way to accomplish our mission. I thought if I could save a few €, I would.