In your case, you won’t be able to use an e-ticket and if you bought the ticket from DB you’d have to pick it up in person at a DB office, which is most likely only in Germany. If you buy it from the SNCF, you’ll still pick it up at their ticket windows at the Gare d’Est in Paris. You show your credit card used for purchase and they give you a paper ticket.

The situation where online website ticketing saves money is when you’re using the same railroad for the entire ticket. If you’re going, say Cologne to Berlin, you’d get a special online fare because it’s all the same railroad and country.

See my comment above about multiple railroad ticketing problems.

I have read in many places that it is cheaper to book direct on the DB Bahn website rather than with agents. However, doing a search for a 2 people in a standard (economy) Double Sleeper carriage, 14th March 2013, overnight on the CNL from Paris to Berlin via DB Bahn and Rail Europe, I seem to get offered 158 euro on Rail Europe (plus 12 euro ticket delivery charge), and 208 Euro on DB Bahn.

Am I missing something, or does it seem correct that Rail Europe looks to be cheaper?

What’s odd about all this is that European railroads don’t use an interline ticket “lift” system as do airlines. If you have a paper ticket the conductor just looks at it and punches it. There is no pulling of coupons for presentation to the issuing railroad for reimbursement, so it strikes me as odd that they are so picky about e-ticket printouts.

This occured in 2009 and I have since been careful to buy tickets only from the originating railroad, ie the one that you ride at the beginning of the journey.

I am wary of the advice to buy all tickets for international rail travel from one railroad for this reason. Has anything changed to make this more user-friendly? Are the European railroads going to a universal e-ticket system as have the airlines since day 1 of e-ticketing?

Jon R:
The article was researched on Friday 12 June 2009, five days before it was published. We say that very clearly in the article, so cannot quite understand why you are so sure it was researched much earlier.

Kaitlin:
The DB Europa-Spezial fares do not come and go. They have been a regular part of the DB offering for some years now and the DB Europa-Spezial-Kroatien has been very much a mainstay. It books up very quickly. So the issue is merely to book well in advance.

We have repeated the exercise on a number of occasions since the original 2009 research. For for of the five routes cited above, the lead-in fare is unchanged. The exception is the Europa-Spezial Kroatien fare where the lead-in fare has gone up from €29 to €39.

We have just taken a look again, and the DB online booking system still shows Berlin to Zagreb available for €39 on many dates in the 4-week period which we examined, viz. in September and October. To book it, enter Berlin Hbf and Zagreb Gavni Kolod under “von” and “nach” respectively. The best routing is via München, so under “Zwischenhalt” enter München Hbf. For the timing choose 21:00 as “Ankunftszeit” (that’s just after the EC113 / 213 day train from Munich arrives in Zagreb). Under “Verkehrsmittel” select Direktverbindungen (in place of Umsteige zulassen) in the second sector (ie. Munich to Zagreb).

And, hey presto…. up come the fares. It’s a long day trip, Berlin to Zagreb, but do-able with just that one change in Munich.

The full fare for this routing is over €200, but looking just now there are still cheap tickets every day in the 4-week spell we examined. And the €39 fare is available on 12 of those 28 days.

There has been no reduction in the number of direct trains to Zagreb in the last six months. all still there, and waiting to be booked. Of course there are plentiful other routings and options (including overnight trains). It would just take a while to explain them all here. And we have written extensively about this sort of booking in our various publications.

Hope this helps.
Nicky and Susanne
editors
Europe by Rail: The Definitive Guide for Independent Travellers
(Thomas Cook Publishing)

In the six months or so there has been a reduction of direct trains to Slovenia and Croatia, with one formerly direct train now requiring an across platform quick change of trains in Villach, Austria. And DB’s website can rarely display fares of any kind for foreign journeys from Germany that involve one and especially more than one change of trains.

The significance of the article was that agencies, such as Rail Europe, essentially never have fares that are as good as the ones shown on national rail sites and are usually much higher. But the agencies’ advertising is geared toward those, especially from outside Europe, who don’t venture in to the national rail sites. And sometimes those national rail sites can be a little tricky to navigate, or they might have a hard time accepting foreign credit cards, or their bargain fares can be non-refundable.

What I might suggest for this journey, Berlin to Zagreb, is to break it down into its constituent parts, checking to see if DB has a good fare for the leg going in to Austria, then checking the Austrian Federal Railway’s site for on in to Slovenia or even all the way to Zagreb. And it wouldn’t hurt to check the Slovenian site too. That’s what I would do myself.

I hope this helps!

I was reading the above post about buying a train ticket from Berlin to Zagreb via bahn.de costing 29 Euro. Every time i try and search for a ticket on their site, it says pricing not available. Was there a certain time of the year it was only 29 euro? Or how can i see the prices?

If you do know, I’d love help,

Thank you,
Kaitlyn

1. Pay the full fare which is €51 single or €102 return per person. So, for four of you, a total of €408 return. Totally flexible. Travel on any train.

2. Book now online and take advantage of the DB Europa-Spezial tariff. For the fastest direct trains, branded EuroCity, the lead-in one-way fare is €19 or €38 return. So, for the four of you, €156 return. This fare is still available on selected trains on your preferred travel dates. For example out from Munich on July 20 at 08.27 and back from Bad Gastein on July 28 at 18.17 (possibly others, but those were the ones we checked). Not flexible. You MUST travel on the train you book.

3. There is a great cheapo alternative that preserves flexibility. All five of you could travel Munich to Salzburg with a Bayern Ticket (using the Regional Express service). This costs €29, so €7.25 per person one way. Then in Salzburg just buy a regular onward ticket to Bad Gastein. This is €17.60 per person valid on any train. This brings the one-way fare from Munich (or indeed anywhere else in Bavaria) to Bad Gastein down to €24.85 per person. No need to pre-book and totally flexible. For all four of you, the return fare will be under €200, so saving over 50% on the full price. There are two things to bear in mind. With this ticket combination, you MUST use the Regional Express to Salzburg and only there change on to the fast train. Because of this need to change in Salzburg, you’d leave Munich a little earlier and this increases the overall journey time by 45 minutes. But it’s a great deal and the option we’d choose. Why not break your journey in Salzburg, leaves you bags in the left luggage lockers and have lunch in Salzburg? It’s a chance to make an occasion out of a slightly slower journey and the enforced change of train.

Have fun. Why not report back here on what you decide? Please say if we can help further.

Nicky and Susanne
editors of hidden europe magazine

For Puneet
Would suggest the following options:

1. The overnight train from Karlsruhe to Copenhagen is available and still reasonably price. Out 18th, back 21st (so precisely the dates you want). The return fare is €106. You can purchase a through ticket from Stuttgart, Munich (or indeed anywhere else in Germany), using local (ie. RE and RB) trains from your chosen departure station to Karlsruhe at the same price (ie. €106 return per person).

2. For the same nights the return fare on the City Night Line train from Basel SBB to Copenhagen is €58 return per person. You could use a local Länder Ticket to reach Basel SBB (the BW Land Tkt is valid over the border to Basel SBB station which is in Switzerland).

3. Or, as you imply, in your query, use the Quer Durchs Land ticket with slow trains from your departure point to Puttgarden. This will cost €48 for two people travelling together and will take an age. Then buy a Europa-Spezial Dänemark tkt Puttgarden to Copenhagen, presently available on your preferred dates for €19 per person per direction. For two people, this option would thus cost €172 return. Bear in mind that the QdL ticket cannot be used before 9am.