Train pass. Worth it?
 

Hello all!

My travel agent tells me that we would better off to buy a train pass for our next trip.
We want to take the train from Munich-Salzburg, Salzburg-Vienna, Vienna-Praha, Praha-Dresden, and Dresden-Berlin.

The pass is almost 470 $, and she tells me that we might have to shell out additional fees once we are there for seat booking.

I took a look at prices online with DB Bahn, and the prices do look a lot steeper than for our last trip in Italy.

Are tickets cheaper once we are there if we buy them as we go along? Or is the pass really a good deal?

Merci! :)

If you've looked at the prices for the point-to-point tickets then you know if the pass is a good deal or not. It doesn't matter if the prices this year in Germany and Austria are more than your Italy tickets. It has no bearing on anything. You can't compare prices this year in Germany to some other unknown year in Italy.

Are your train tickets for Germany and Austria more or less expensive than the pass. That's what will make the decision for you.

Tickets are usually cheaper the farther out you buy them.

The Munich to Salzburg ticket will be about E30 for your group if you travel off peak. I see a E19 ticket from Berlin to Dresden, using an arbitrary date. Who knows when those E19 tickets will sell out.

Redid the math. The pass really does not seem like a deal if I buy the reduced price tickets I saw online.

Question is, can I buy and print tickets from Canada on DB Bahn, Czech transport and OBB?

Merci!

I would guess so. I've purchased tickets from the German train site (I'm in the US). I received an eticket with a bar code. When you show your ticket on the train you must show the same credit card that you used to purchase the ticket as the ticket does not have your name on it. This is the only way the train conductor can tell that the ticket belongs to you.

I don't think there's any benefit to buying Czech tickets ahead of time. Buy them when you get there. They're very cheap.

Buy the Bayern pass for the Munich to Salzburg train. There are restrictions that you have to travel after 9:00 AM (after commuter time). As I said, it's about E30 for your group (up to 5 people).

I'm not familiar with OBB but I have seen other threads here about Austrian tickets. Do a search for info.

Thanks for the info! :)

Travel agents sell passes and read information on what they sell - they don't often know about all the offers out there.

Bayern ticket details:

http://www.munich-touristinfo.de/Bavaria-Ticket.htm

Austrian daypass, counterpart to the Bayern Ticket:

http://www.oebb.at/en/Tickets/Groups...cket/index.jsp

Merci! Just the info I needed...

My intuition was right. It's way more expensive with the pass.

Completely agree about Bavaria ticket (it fits perfect for you) and potentially Einfach-Raus Ticket. But also wanted to add that in case of Salzburg-Vienna you can use rather cheap private operator WestBahn (https://westbahn.at ), even their full fare is like twice cheaper than OeBB + they have promo also.
In case of Vienna-Prague you can travel for as low as 29 EUR in case you purchase your ticket in advance from OeBB website (https://ticket.oebb.at/bin/frame_tic...ket.pl?LANG=EN ) or, in case you don't want to do that, then there is a few other 'tricks' on how to travel cheap from Vienna to Prague (let me know if interested)
Prague-Dresden: here you choice is Czech Railways eShop (https://www.cd.cz/eshop ) and tickets from 19 EUR.
Dresden-Berlin: either Spar ticket purchased in advance online from DB website or alternatively similar to Bavaria ticket, but for the whole Germany - Quer-durchs-Land-Ticket(for week days)/Schönes-Wochenende -Ticket(for weekends)

In my experience, anything that starts with "My travel agent tells me..." has only about a 50% chance of being true - maybe less. I don't mean to bag on travel agents because some are very good, but most seem to just sell products and don't have a lot of travel experience.

Fantastic! :)

I just got a great rate for a rental car. We wanted to rent it only for 3 days, but we will now pick it up in Munich and return it in Vienna. With the added bonus of being able to visit places on our way to Vienna!

But I will check out the great cues for the Vienna-Prague, Prague-Dresden and Dresden-Berlin trains.

Vielen Dank!

THanks all

I have been reading the posts and find it very helpful.
We are 2 Adults and 2 kids (9 years and 4.5 years) and we want to go from Salzburg to Rome on 3rd evening, so that we spend night in the train and save hotel and reach Rome on 4th morning.

EuropeTrainsGuideCom : Can you help me with how to travel cheap from Salzburg to Rome in a couchette with 6

Thanks

HI, salilbawa: Have you tried bahn.com?

Not knowing your date of travel, here's what's available for tonight:

a) There is one train that leaves Salzburg at 20:12 and arrives at Klagenfurt at 23:17. Change trains. Second train is the sleeper train, departs Klagenfurt at 23:40, arrives Rome at 9:08. This trip is almost 13 hours long.

b) The second option with only one change of train is this one: departs Salzburg at 1:34 (that 1:30 am!) and arrives at Venice at 8:39. This is the sleeper train. At Venice you have 14 minutes to change trains; depart Venice at 8:39, arrive Rome at 12:24. This trip is slightly less than 11 hours long.

http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/que...&rt=1&OK#focus

Personally, I'd do option a, even though it's a longer journey.

We are going to need the approximate dates of your travel to give you better inforamtion. Also it would be best to start a thread of your own, as not everyone who can answer your question will necessarily be opening this thread.

Thsnks, We plan to travel on 3rd May evening from Salzburg to Reach Rome on 4th morning

Rgds

"I just got a great rate for a rental car. We wanted to rent it only for 3 days, but we will now pick it up in Munich and return it in Vienna. With the added bonus of being able to visit places on our way to Vienna!"

Find out if the company permits you to drive their cars in the CZ Republic. Some companies do not.

Thanks for the cue Russ. We are only renting it from Munich to Vienna. After that, it's back to trains for us! :)

Salilbawa, there is basically two rail options you have here:
a) catch overnight CNL train Munich-Rome. The train is a bit expensive, but special discounted ticket offered (can be bought via DB website). Offer called "Europa-Spezial Italien". Nuance is that such discounted tickets available only from German station, thus you need to buy ticket not from Salzburg, but from Freilassing, which is just 7-8 min. from Salzburg. Connection will look like this: you board regional train #79042 at 20:09 in Salzburg, at 20:17 it's in Freilassing, then you get off in Rosenheim at 21:28, while Munich-Rome train departs to Rosenheim 21:42 (arr.to Rome 9:08). Europa-Spezial Italien ticket+ 6 berth couchette reservation Freilassing-Rome costs 178 EUR for 2 adults and 2 children of your age. The only thing you need to do is simply by short distance ticket Salzburg-Freilassing for only 4,4 EUR for all of you (at the end you won't even get off in Freilassing since anyway will continue to Rosenheim by the same train, just before Freilassing you'll have one ticket to show, while after it will be already another one).
b) catch EuroNight train Vienna-Rome. Timing was already described by easytraveler. The train departs Klagenfurt 23:40 and there is also discounted tickets available. This time via Austrian Railways website, in your case total sum for Klagenfurt-Rome (2 adults and 2 children) is 177 EUR, but the real problem here is leg Salzburg-Klagenfurt, since it's a bit difficult to do it cheaply, unless you get 9 EUR Sparschiene tickets in advance, but anyway option 'b' is more expensive than going via Rosenheim.