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Tips to buy train ticket in Europe /DB train, Germany

The game is always the same whether you bought train tickets

How to save the money in your pocket?

 

1. When should I buy my tickets?

As early as you can, that's how people always tell you about that. Of course, the train ticket you buy 1 month prior your trip shall be cheaper than 1 days one. But there are many variable factors and the reality is different from what you desired, you may struggle to take bus or train, any delay occurred or maybe it's your first time to Europe and you simply don't know what will be happened.

You have to be aware of the price changing all the time even though you are not decided to buy the tickets yet. All train tickets have the lowest price, you an simply search the same ticket but with different date and you will find the difference.

**different type of train please refer to Transport in Germany: DB

Taking 07:31 ICE train from Mannheim hbf to Munich Airport as example:

*searching on 5th Jan, 2018

ticket for 6th Jan, 2018/07.31 - 11.15 ICE from Mannheim hbf to Munich Airport/77.9€

ticket for 8th Jan, 2018/07.31 - 11.15 ICE from Mannheim hbf to Munich Airport/49.9€


​​SLXLM


ticket for 10th Jan, 2018/07.31 - 11.15 ICE from Mannheim hbf to Munich Airport/29.9€

From the above example, you can see the price varied but the lowest price shall be 30€

And the price rise 2-3 times before 2-3 days of the journey, so it is fine to buy tickets 3-5 days before the journey

The price is also different with same routes but different departure time

49.9€ for 07.30 ICE train and 69.9€ for 08.15 one

2. Shall I make seat reservation for long-distance train?

I would say it is not necessary because you always have a seat. All seats are written with reservation and seems like the train is full. In fact, the reservation light are turn on whether someone reserved the seat throughout the journey. Unless you took train from the first station to the last one, which is super crazy to do so, someone always leave at the next station and you can take an empty seat when the train is leaving the station.

It costs 4.5€ only so it depends on your budgets.

I never take overnight train but perhaps it is quite important to have your own seat for that though.

3. Shall I buy train ticket at flexprice?

No although flexible price allow you to change your train journey anytime and sounds to be flexible.

There are a big price difference between normal and flexible price. Paying with flexible price, it means you are paying the highest price of the train tickets with the same routes of the day.

Then what is the point of waking up early or taking an unfavorable time?

You may presume any accidents occurred but the train is probably having more accidents than you. It is very common to have train delay here. So no worries

**In case any train delay, the rail operator will compensate you like paying you taking taxi to your destination. If you have any connected train, it's better to buy the tickets at once as guarantee yourself the most. (Sometimes they will just compensate for your first journey but not the second one if you buy the tickets separately)

Not recommended to take trains with many transits because it is quite tiring...Sometimes you feel fancy of having train trip with fabulous view. In fact, you feel sleepy and fell asleep all the time... (except tourist train trip)

4. Is it more expensive to buy tickets with a faster train?

ICE train is more expensive than RB one for sure. But it is not always the same when you compare ICE and EC

so taking a slower train doesn't mean to save money more.

Train with 4.5 hrs duration is even more expensive than those take less than 4 hrs.

Sometimes, there are some exceptional cases too. I was planning to take EC train from Mannheim to Munich at 14.04. The price was 40€ but became 70€ when I wanna book the ticket one day before my departure. Eventually, I grabbed a ICE morning ticket at 30€ the day before the departure. You don't really need to compare the price all the same time. The key is to know the lowest price possible. Never buy tickets on the day of departure because it must be at the highest price.

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