I'm looking to book 2 adults and 2 children (11 & 13) from Geneva, Switzerland to Konstanz, Germany this August. I have a specific date and am willing to commit to a specific train time. I realize that most rail tickets cannot be booked until 92 days or closer, but I would like to do some research and determine where to buy from when the timeframe opens.

So far I have only found that I could book such a route on the SBB site, 30 days in advance. The German Bahn site says that Konstanz is too minor of a destination for them to provide international fare information from Geneva. Is there another site I should look into that may provide cheaper fares? The SBB site quotes around $372 for the four travelers (this includes 1/2 fare for the children.)

Thanks for any suggestions!

You might want to try the Swiss site.

Start with this http://www.sbb.ch/en/home.html
and figure out your dates and times.

There seems to be more than one Konstanz on this site, just make sure you have the right one. When you type in Konstanz, you will have several Konstanz' to choose from.

Hi Kanne

I had some difficulty with our coming trip schedule and I posted my question on the following site : ommunity.raileurope.com/

An Eurorail employee answered within 1 day with lots of good info. give it a try. Best of luck.

I am not understanding your need to figure out "where to buy from"

I would assume, perhaps incorrectly, that you can buy these tickets on the SBB site and since you cannot book until at least 90 days out why are you concerned?

www.bahn.com
lists Geneve to Konstanz with either one or two train changes (in Zurich Hauptbahnhof +/- Weinfelden)at 4 hours travel time, but I couldn't get a price without submitting everyone's ages and setting up an account.
www.sbb.ch
lists 2nd class adult ticket price as 50CHF one way per person with purchase available ONE MONTH in advance for date selected, so 150 CHF for 4 (including the two half fare children).

Roughly $165 at todays exchange rate!

>An Eurorail employee answered within 1 day with lots of good info.

"Eurorail" does not exist. The person who replied was most probably an employee of Raileurope, a reselling agency, and the "good info" was surely in favour of their business but not necessarily in favour of the customer. Point-to-point tickets ought to be booked right from the issuer of the ticket - in this case SBB, so you pay the original fare without paying extra for the service of an agency.

Thanks for the replies! Yes, I have checked the Swiss site - SBB. I am ok with waiting until 30 days out if that is the site likely to offer the best price. However, if there is another site that is likely to offer any special discount I would like to be aware of that potential option.

Mokka4 - I'll have to try the BAHN site again. When I tried there it wouldn't offer me pricing for that route, apparently because it is an international route and Konstanz is not a major city (if I was trying to book between say Geneva & Munich they would be able to quote me a price). I'll see if I have better luck today with BAHN. The fare you found is great!

>The person who replied was most probably an employee of Raileurope, a reselling agency, and the "good info" was surely in favour of their business but not necessarily in favour of the customer

Quokka, Jeffrey, an employee of Rail Europe,(according to their forum) just provided me with locations for some of train stations and suggested since my travel time was not within the 90 days period to just play with the dates so I could get an idea of how to schedule all the different trains that I would eventually need. That's the reason I had suggested their community.raileurope.com/ forum. since I found the information given quite helpful.

Whoops - Mokka4, I just reread your post and see that it was the SBB site where you got the 150 CHF price. Perhaps it's the day of the week we would travel (Saturday), but the rate I get is 312 CHF including the two half fare children. Perhaps that is the best I will find.

Thanks all!

>>>lists 2nd class adult ticket price as 50CHF one way per person with purchase available ONE MONTH in advance for date selected, so 150 CHF for 4 <<<

I think that's the price if you have a Half Fare card. The adults are 104chf each and the kids (up to age 16) are 52chf each.

You may want to price out one of the highly-discounted advance-purchase tickets. You can generally get a second class ticket around 30-40 euro. These tickets go on sale 90 days early and tend to sell out quickly, so the early you try, the more you'll save. You can find them at the Swiss or the German rail sites:
www.rail.ch
www.bahn.de

Hi njohn12, that's exactly what I would like to do. I can commit to a specific time and train so would be willing to buy far in advance. The problem is I don't see such discounted tickets (at least for this route) on the sbb site or the bahn site (which won't give me a price for such a route for any date when I enter a mock reservation). If there is something I am missing on either site I would much appreciate the direction. Thanks!

SPLIT THE JOURNEY!

Geneva-Zurich www.sbb.ch. Train every hour, Swiss domestic trains, no reservation needed, fixed price ticket.

Zurich-Konstanz at www.bahn.de, English button top right, direct trains every hour, fixed price 23.80 euros,

Yes fixed price tickets so NO need to pre-book - tickets are valid on any train anytime so no need to worry about getting on a specific train - no regular trains in Switzerland require reservations and very few Swiss reserve seats on an optional basis - just hop on - so so many trains. Great sources of info on Swiss trains - www.seat61.com (Man in Seat 61 who posts above his commercial site) - www.ricksteves.com and www.budgeteuropetravel.com and www.swisstravelsystem.com. Again just buy those tickets once in Geneva.

Thanks for the advice on splitting the journey, I could have sworn I had tried that -but just now got it to go through as suggested. I will indeed wait until in Geneva to purchase the tickets.

Regarding reservations: even on a Saturday in August they are not necessary? The few extra dollars to save looking car to car for open seats for four together would be worth it to me. Thanks again!

Well in zillions of trips on Swiss trains I rarely recall not having empty seats in 2nd class on long-distance trains and especially since one train starts in Geneva (perhaps Geneva airport) it will likely be sparely full. And maybe the other train starts in Zurich?

But as you say seat reservations are only a few francs so why not - especially if you want a window or aisle seat or two adjoining seats with aisle and window, etc. Get these when you buy your ticket - trains never sell out really as you can always board even if full - which they are highly unlikely to be IME.

Actually you could pay extra and buy a first-class ticket then in my years and years of Swiss train riding I have never ever not seen oodles of empty seats in first class.