Charged for using inbound/outbound in "wrong order"

Thanks for the quick answer! I'll definitely be in touch with them. I was going to wait for the bill but I guess it couldn't hurt to try to get ahead of it.

If I may vent a little: I think he noticed the weird order of the journey, then that I spoke bad German with a British accent and was travelling between Germany and the UK, and thought this all smelled like Interrail abuse.

Can't especially blame him for that, it sort of is. I'm not a backpacker, I'm travelling this way because it's cheaper. But still, a valid pass is a valid pass, I would think.

One thing I'm slightly concerned about: I'm not actually able to cross the border today. I'm heading for it and will cross first thing tomorrow (on a separate ticket). Normally I wouldn't think this would be a big problem, but I'm now concerned about justifying that this was a valid use of my outbound ticket. Does anyone know if it's sufficient that I was aiming for an international railway station (and have separate plans to cross the border as soon as I can)? I won't talk about this if they don't ask, I'm just wondering. The conductor didn't mention this at all when he wrote me up, it was just about the order of inbound/outbound.

Please also report this to customer service:

https://eurail.zendesk.com/hc/en-001/requests/new

Add details: date, train, time it happened. They'll probably also contact DB themselves.

If any bill arrives, contest it with DB (they have a separate website for it). Citing the t&c should be enough.

Also, I can't see any abuse here.

As to your journey today: if you're concerned about not crossing a border, then just add an extra journey that does.

Thanks for the answer! That's a good idea, I will reach out to them. At least they can tell me if I'm in the right and what to do about it.

I actually had the idea to add a journey, but there was physically no way to leave Germany on the pass last night. I had thought this wouldn't be an issue as I'm heading to the border and can obviously claim that I'm travelling onward independently (I mean, I am, but I didn't think it would be anybody's business exactly how I was doing it).

I'm pretty sure the rules here are murky enough that if they accept the inbound/outbound order thing they should accept this though.

An update on this (in case anybody else finds themselves in a similar position and this helps them).

I contacted Interrail support about the incident as suggested above, and they said that while they couldn’t comment on the specifics of my case until it was all there in front of them, there was no requirement that inbound/outbound journeys had to be done in a specific order.

I received the fine at home about a week after my journey. It was 600 EUR. I happened to see the fare for my journey on the day in the DB Navigator app and it was much less than this, so I feel like the inspector really threw the book at me.

I reached out to Interrail support again with the fine and the details of my trip, asking for verification of validity that I could take back to Deutsche Bahn when appealing the fine. However they contacted Deutsche Bahn directly and the fine was waived. Couldn’t have asked for better support. The process took a couple of working days.

I’ve verified as far as possible that my other concerns above (ultimately failing to leave the country on the outbound day, possibly not travelling “in the spirit” of Interrail) were basically just paranoia, although I’m still a little unclear on the exact rules regarding border crossings and inbound/outbound travel, and will definitely be more careful about that in the future. I knew I was right on the inbound/outbound order thing, but if I’d actually reached Belgium on the pass that day I would’ve felt much more confident in my appeal. It was quite unusual that I was travelling so late; normally if I travel to the UK overland I just get as far as I can on the first day (used to be I could get all the way to my hometown in the English Midlands, but trains on the route aren’t as reliable as they used to be, especially in Germany).

Anyway... I’m going to make a separate complaint to DB as there were a few things they could’ve done differently here, and I also don’t think simply waiving the fine is enough given the stress this caused (especially when I saw the enormous size of the fine that was issued - I didn’t know how much it was going to be when I first posted here). I guess if I’m lucky I might get a voucher or something.

I’m glad that Eurail were helpful. It’s good to see that they took ownership of the problem and got the fine taken away.

I agree that DB should be offering something here. It’s not right to threaten people with a €600 fine incorrectly! There should be a penalty for them for such behaviour.

I think if DB customer service don’t give you a goodwill voucher, you should tell them you will be complaining to the regulator.

To be clear, there’s no “Interrail abuse” here.  Other than perhaps commuting with your pass or swapping it with another person, there aren’t too many abuse scenarios.

Getting near the border on a “same country day” . . . there’s nothing which says you MUST cross the border by train.  You MAY cross the border if you get that far, but if you don’t then you have used your pass correctly on your journey out of the country.  For all anyone knows you could have walked across the border (looking at you France/Spain).

Going back and forth between places a number of times . . . there’s nothing that says you must visit different places each time you travel.  On one of my early trips in the last century I used my pass to visit the future-Mrs-zagmund while she was working in the Netherlands for the summer.  Finish work on Thursday, get ferry, train, train, ferry, train, spend the weekend there and then return back on Sunday/Monday.  And then do it all over again the next weekend.  It’s all perfectly allowable.

You can rest easy on your worries about “using it wrong” in your scenario.  It’s all about opening up travel opportunities.

By commuting I mean buying a pass and using it to travel to work in Germany from home in Germany every day while pretending you actually live in Portugal.

Thanks for the reply, it's good to hear. Also appreciate the clarification, I don't want to mislead people.

Tbh This was all slightly triggered by the inspector at one point in our discussion trying to give me a bit of a lecture on the "proper" use of an Interrail pass for travelling and seeing the world etc. That and expecting my trip would get more scrutiny during the appeal sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole. I wouldn't have worried about it before this really.

I have seen people online debating the correct use of inbound/outbound journeys in relation to entering/leaving the country, but it seems like the conditions are intentionally very vague to provide maximum flexibility.