German reservations in August

  • 2 August 2022
  • 4 replies
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Y
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Just for advice:

We plan to travel from Nuremberg to Brussels 26 August 1st class. Although reservations are not compulsory I thought I would check availability on DBbahn. I was amazed that the journey was showing as high demand so decided to see how many seats available. The ICE from Nuremberg was already about 70% booked and the ICE from Frankfurt was about 80% booked and few pairs of seats available.

 

11.80 euros later we have reserved seats on both.

Alternative later trains showed low demand so I guess it is only peak trains that may be full, but always worth checking.

4 replies

M
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Userlevel 7
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You could have saved half of that by booking it as 1 trip-assuming you will not want a break on the way

Now the bad news: I hope it will be allright, but the practice of the last 4-5 weeks is abysmal for the trains to BE (as they are special sets with 2 currents): near half are cancelled and the rest sometimes so overcrowded that they are cleared by special railway-police. They are always also shortened in the trip they make-I hope for you the split is in Köln, even though they should start from FRA. Plus that timekeeping in DE is also abysmal-less as half those ICE trains run on time.

However-DB stops selling RES when they reach like 60-70% of all seats in a set-not till train is fully booked. THis to allow for the traditional very high nr of unbooked pax and those coming off delays and missed their original plan.

Hint: I recall your name, so if you have more plans to travel DB/DE; set up a BahnBonus account-for free, then you save points for every expense via bahn and the process also gets much faster-as all details are stored-I guess you know that from the UK-equiv. You get a nice bonus as start and with enough points you can get free upgrades, trips, tickets etc. They will even send-weeks later-a free card to your UK home adress as proof. Sadly buying an INterRailPass from them will not give points…...

Y
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +10

You could have saved half of that by booking it as 1 trip-assuming you will not want a break on the way

Now the bad news: I hope it will be allright, but the practice of the last 4-5 weeks is abysmal for the trains to BE (as they are special sets with 2 currents): near half are cancelled and the rest sometimes so overcrowded that they are cleared by special railway-police. They are always also shortened in the trip they make-I hope for you the split is in Köln, even though they should start from FRA. Plus that timekeeping in DE is also abysmal-less as half those ICE trains run on time.

However-DB stops selling RES when they reach like 60-70% of all seats in a set-not till train is fully booked. THis to allow for the traditional very high nr of unbooked pax and those coming off delays and missed their original plan.

Hint: I recall your name, so if you have more plans to travel DB/DE; set up a BahnBonus account-for free, then you save points for every expense via bahn and the process also gets much faster-as all details are stored-I guess you know that from the UK-equiv. You get a nice bonus as start and with enough points you can get free upgrades, trips, tickets etc. They will even send-weeks later-a free card to your UK home adress as proof. Sadly buying an INterRailPass from them will not give points…...

Thanks for the insight. Thankfully we have left some time in our journeys for delays etc. I don’t doubt there will be some tears in our 10 days from Sicily to the UK but that is life. We have now got bookings for all our other key train rides via IR res and OEBB,com. 

It does though show that my advisory on not assuming seats will be available without RES was well timed.

I hadn’t considered the Bahncard but given we have a 3 month unlimited in the bank for early 2023  and several thoughts about Italy and Germany for trips it would be a nice bonus- thank you.

R
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Userlevel 7
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You could have saved half of that by booking it as 1 trip-assuming you will not want a break on the way

@mcadv

They did. Note the "we”. 2 reservations 1st class costs exactly €11.80.

However-DB stops selling RES when they reach like 60-70% of all seats in a set

There are certain seats that can't be booked but that's much less than 30-40%.

Please ask questions in the community and not via a private message. That's the quickest way to get a response. I don't work for Eurail/Interrail.
Y
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Just an update:

First the Nur - Fra airport was busy but seemed to have some spare seats.

Next the Fra airport - Bru which was almost full leaving Fra..

There was a lot of confusion which carriage was what number as they were not logical and the numbering system by the doors and on the in carriage display was down. However the seat reservations were accurate (ours were at least). We had spotted the location of our carriage on the platform based signage and as ours were first class seats there was only a couple of options anyway.

The chaos that ensued at Cologne was entertaining from our reserved seats, There were many passengers waiting and few getting off. Arguments from passengers getting on finding their seats full, mostly about the carriage numbers, then those being ejected had to stand as the free seats were rapidly filled, often with second class passengers.

Finally the train set off with some passengers sitting on floors among the bikes and luggage abandoned everywhere.

No staff anywhere in site - not surprising really.

So, sat in our luxury seats, we next got the news that due to an incident on the line we were being diverted by Munchen-Gladbach and there would be about an hour delay.

No further problems, and since we were overnighting before E* we were happy and stress free, unlike several who were missing connections.

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