I guess not the German rail changed the fares (they always do that with the publishing of the new schedule in december) but RailEurope or similar decided to increase their already overblown ticket prices...

I believe you are correct about the price increase being RailEurope. A few months ago I was trying to find out for someone about the fare from Vienna to Prague. I figured the fare two ways, by adding up the Austrian Rail fare and the Czech Rail fare to each side of the border, then I compared it with RE's fare, which at the time was $69. Finally, I emailed Austrian Rail and got a quote, with reservations, of 47 EUR, about $62. I just now checked RE's website, and they now charge $96 for the same route, an increase of 40%!

Yes it was strictly a RailEurope increase - they i guess set point-point ticket prices and with the steep increases now way more out of kilter than before. Just a few months ago their Italian tickets were about the same as full fare trenitalia.com ones or roughy in the same ballpark. But now way higher - i guess they've made a marketing decision if they're going to sell pt-pt tickets they're going to make it worthwhile to make more money on fewer sales. All the more reason to check local fares and strategies such as Colorado Larry and others point out in Germany like Lander fares.
Still for a wide ranging German trip where you'll be taking ICEs between say Berlin, Frankfurt or Munich the German Railpass can quickly pay off - especially since it can be used on any train without surcharge. But for regional trips and slow-moving travel investigate the things Larry and others have painstakingly outlined how to find on the www.bahn.de site.

And although RailEurope did not increase the German railpass prices it did increase nearly all other country and two-country pass prices about 5% Wednesday at midnight.
Eurailpasses were not effected except for EurailYouthpasses.

I'm not sure how much this is going to hurt Rail Europe's business. I think anyone who has any awareness already doesn't buy point-point tickets from them, and the totally clueless will pay any price because they don't know any better.

<the totally clueless will pay any price because they don't know any better>
I think you've got it right - soaking those who will buy at practically any price!

<<If you choose a route over which the fare is applicable, it will display that as a choice.>>

That is true only for the Schönes-Wochenend ticket; if you put in regional trains on a weekend day, and the fare for up to five people is more than 30 EUR, the DB website will advise you to buy a S-W ticket. However, they don't do that with Länder tickets.

Hello sdfamily

i find in my favorite link 2 sites with information for train pass and
a agency for booking train pass in germany

here the links

http://www.tiary.de

- planing with google maps your traintravel

http://www.famigo.de

- travel with children in germany and. train pass booking.


sincely
holidayfrank

Frank, first, that thread ran in 2006. I suspect that sdfamily have already made that trip and returned.

Second, the fact that the websites you mention are only in German might be a hindrance to most peoplle on this site. However, I can read enough to know that those websites have no practical value.