suze1

I've been looking at a lot of options on the bahn site for money saving ideas for these 3 destinations but it doesn't really show me any options, I want to go from Frankfurt to Bacharach, Bacharach to Rothenburg and Rothenburg to Munich. Is point to point the only option, any pass I look at costs more than point to point. Also, is there an advantage of getting your tickets on the web ahead of time instead of waiting until you arrive.

PalQ

www.railsaver.com may help with efficacy of pass or not.

PalQ

I'm pretty sure point-point at the station will be best bet for you - at least i think price will be same as thru www.bahn.de - German rail site, which lists prices as:
(2nd class)
Bacharach-Rothenburg 48 euro
Rothenburg-Munich 37-40 euro
doesn't give Frankfurt-bacharach but perhaps 10 euro?
total about 100 euro total - cheapest German rail pass is $150 for 4 days of unlimited travel out of one month period so unless you have other plans just buy all your tickets at once upon landing at Frankfurt Airport's train stations.
Can't see where bahn site gives discounts for these kind of trips.
To easily reach the Bahn.de site's English schedule and pricing page go to www.budgeteuropetravel.com and on their home page click on "All European Railway Schedules" or some such thing and you'll instantly get the English schedule page where you just put in the towns, dates and then get all train schedules and pricing for most trains except locals like Frankfurt-Bacharach. (You obviously know how to use the site but this is for others as it's sometimes hard to get to the English page.)
You could perhaps look into using a Bavarian Pass, sold locally, to go from Rothenburg to Munich, especially if traveling with others but you are restricted mainly to regional trains i believe. But could save money.
If you were doing just a bit more rail travel than German Railpass would come into play (not sold in Germany).

ira

ttt

Russ

If you do Bacharach-Rothenburg on a Sat or Sun, it's 30 years total for 1-5 people with the Happy Weekend ticket.

It's 11.90 each for Frankfurt Hbf. to Bacharach, according to the local transit authority, www.rmv.de , if you use the S-Bahn and RB or RE trains. It will cost less if you are going from Frankfurt Airport to Bacharach. Buy these tickets in Frankfurt from the Blue-green ticket machines labeled RMV.

PalQ

russ correct me if wrong but with Happy Weekend tickets - i'm not familiar with that exact one but these types of weekend passes, where you can go all over Germany for a pittance usually means you can only travel on regional trains, which could take a whole lot longer than fast trains. Can save a ton of money but maybe 'waste' a day of travel?

altamiro

Yes, but 1) for not too long journeys you "waste" something like 1/2 hour, not a day with the slow trains, and on many relations like Frankfurt-Bacharach, there are no others than Regional Express trains.

grsing

And you get to see more local people on regional trains, if that's important to you (or you could just see a cool-looking town out the window and decide to hop off at its train station, since it's almost guaranteed that it has one). For long trips, RBs would be a big pain, but for a couple hours or so, they're not so bad.

Russ

PalQ:

The ICE itins take between 2.5 and 3 hours for Frankfurt-Rothenburg and tix are about 37 Euros each; It's about 3.25 hours on the Regional trains, and the happy weekend ticket (good for 5 people) is what, 30 Euros? So if you're alone, you may want to shave off that 1/2 hour for 7 Euros more. If there are 2, 3, 4, or 5 of you, you may prefer to spend the 44, 81, 118, or 155 Euros you'll save on the happy weekend ticket on something else and extend your party-on-the-train another 30 minutes.

Personally, I think I'd buy a couple of good bottles of wine and then, once in Rothenburg, see whether we could even remember what time we boarded in Frankfurt.

adeben

Your listed rides are too short to make a pass worthwhile. So take the advice above and seek the cheapest point-to-point tickets. The Help desk at Frankfurt HBF will probably advise you best, and you can buy all the tickets needed there.

PalQ

I agree on many rides the time difference is neglible but i was thinking about journeys such as Munich to Berlin which i would think may be much longer on regional trains. It depends on who you are talking to - i do a lot of train consulting and when i tell someone it "3 hours" on the train some say oh that's not bad but others recoil like it's some marathon journey. But if not in a rush the Happy Weekend tickets are an incredible travel bargain.