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Good morning,

I’ve been trying to make a reservation on the night train from Krakow to Budapest for August 27th-28th nights. However, I keep getting problems. When trying through cd.cz I got an error and contacted them, their answer was to get in touch with pkp, but pkp isn’t answering my emails. Moreover, I’m not able to buy through their website since it seems to be compulsory to buy this tickets with their “super offer”. This doesn’t enable me to untick a box and the following message is shown: “Pilot sales are underway. Currently, only Super Promo International tickets may be purchased for this e-IC route, provided that promotional tickets are available. Their availability depends on the purchase date and the amount of promotional tickets used.” Thus, I cannot select Interrail pass. Only other possible options I’ve come up with are booking it through Hungarian Railways (mav), but it charges 67€ for just a seat (no option for couchettes), making no interrail discount even when adding the pass, and Polrail service, which I do not know how reliable is. Note that according to mav’s website there are still a great ammount of available tickets.

Any help would be appreciated,

Thanks in advance.

 

I am not an expert in this but seeing nobody else replied this is what I tried:

  • bahn.de shows the nighttrain but you cannot book it there, regardless of interrail.
  • OBB does show the train (no 407) but it says it is going to Graz and wants you to change at Breclav at 04:00, to another nighttrain that does go to Budapest. OBB also conveniently shows (https://live.oebb.at/train-info?trainNr=407&date=2023-08-27&station=5100028&time=22%3A40) that the train is pretty much loaded (status just now). 
  • On OBB you can buy a reservation for €3 for the day-train on the 28th. Search for the discount-card 'Interrail / Eurail - Globalpass’

I am interested in hearing what other people recommend, but I would suggest that this is a situation to ask at the ticket counter in Poland, and to do so as soon as possible considering it appears to be many's favorite train.  


Thanks for your reply!

Regarding the load status, cd.cz (https://www.cd.cz/en/vlak/407/17.8.2023/5100028/22.37/5500728/8.29/) shows that those train carriages in obb's website are the ones going to Austria, so maybe those ending in Budapest aren't that loaded.

Concerning pkp's, I've received the following reply:

 "Dear Sir or Madam,

On behalf of PKP Intercity S.A. thank you very much for your correspondence.

Kindly informs that due to the correction of the timetable, the sale of tickets for the selected connection is administratively blocked.

The possibility of purchasing tickets will be successively made available.

Information about the availability of sales for individual trains will be provided on the website:

https://www.intercity.pl/pl/dostepnosc-sprzedazy-na-pociagi-szczegoly.html"

Exploring other options, I've discovered that through cd.cz I can book the same train from kraków to breclav and from there to Budapest. Is there any problem in travelling in the same train but with different tickets for each of those journeys? No need to worry about losing a train day if doing so since we have some spare ones.

Moreover, if doing this last thing, we might have to change carriages in breclav, since not all of them arrive to Budapest. Is there enough time to do so?

Another possibility is going to wien in the night train and from there to Budapest. 

Thanks in advance! 


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