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Why are ICE tickets in Germany 6 euros instead of 4,50 when booking through Eurail?

  • 27 August 2022
  • 7 replies
  • 106 views

We booked outbound ICE Hamburg Cologne, then TGV. They took 6 Euros for one seat. Why? It doesn’t even say so on the pricelist?

7 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +5

Then you had 50 cts bargain! As the app charges for each+any RES an extra 2€ fee-which you could easily have seen if you had taken the 2-3 mins to read first the info. On bahn.com you can do it yourself for 4,50.

In case-like so many, you have to do more RES in other countries-find the long list by seewulf that anna fra Sverige links to in all 1st answers

Thanks a lot. Indeed I did not take into account, that there was an additional fee. It does not say so, I find it a bit annoying to find out about it now. You can guess it from the “pricelist”, where Gemrany is listed with 4 euros for 2nd class, which is wrong, and the example above “Berlin - Hamburg 6 Euros”.

https://www.eurail.com/en/plan-your-trip/about-reservations/reservation-fees/domestic-train-reservation-fees

They could write it down, once You go to “About reservations”. I think.

And: I now got my receipt, detailed, one of them. And it shows the following: ICE costs 6 instead of 4,50 PLUS an additional booking fee for reservations of 2 Euros per booking per person!!! THIS is really annoying.

Userlevel 7
Badge +9

The advice from the experienced travellers is to only make the reservation through Interrail/Eurail if no other way is possible. Please read more about that below.

 

Here is some useful information from the experienced travellers in the Community regarding both planning, reservations and activation of pass and travel days. 

 Planning

The rail planner is normally not up to date, as it only is updated once a month, so to be sure of the time table you better check the timetable and availability on the websites of the national railways. The bigger national railways, like DB (Germany) SBB (Switzerland) and ÖBB (Austria) cover several countries. 

 Reservations 

The advice from the experienced travellers in the community is to use other ways to make reservations than the Interrail/Eurail website.  You can look at the guide in the link:

https://community.eurail.com/train-connections-reservations-47/how-to-get-reservations-105

If you, after having looked at the guide, have questions about how to make specific reservation, please give your travel details (departure date, time and route) preferably in a new topic, and you will get advice.

Please note that Interrail/Eurail charges an extra fee of 2 EUR per person and train in addition to the fee for the seat reservation.

 Activation of pass

During the activation process, when you choose the start day of the validity of the pass, the first day of the validity period is automatically made a travel day, even if you don't enter a journey, the advice is therefore not to activate the pass before the first travel day as you only can deactivate the pass before 00.00 on the day the validity starts. If your travel plans change in the last moment you will loose travel days if you have activated the pass in advance.

It can be wise to make a test and activate the pass with a start date well in the future and then deactivate the pass immediately, just to see that everything works.

 Activation of travel day

The advice from the experienced travellers in the community is also never to activate a travel day, that is connect a journey to your pass, until just before boarding the train, otherwise you might loose a travel day if your travel plans change in a late stage  You can't delete a travel day in the past. A travel day can only be deleted until 23.59 CET the day before the travel day.

Thanks a lot and where on this site could I have seen it? https://www.eurail.com/en/plan-your-trip/about-reservations? Do not get me wrong, community is great, cloud intelligence is great, Your infos are great, but basic information, and I consider this a basic information, when a normal seat reservation in Germany costs 16 in the end for two people in one train, 8 for one, which is almost double as much as it costs, when i book through my db app, this info belongs on top of the site of the providing service company. I think.

But nonetheless thank You, I am learning!

Regards

Kira

Userlevel 7
Badge +9

Basically, the Interrail website is the last place to look for reservations. Only use it if there's no other option.

For optional reservations without supplement, the railways can decide for themselves what they charge. And they all have different prices and policies, e.g.:

  • DB: €4.50 per journey in 2nd class, €5.90 in 1st.
  • ÖBB: €3 per train; in Austria: €3 per journey.
  • CD: CZK 76 (~€3) per train
  • DSB: DKK 30 (~€4) per train
  • NS: €4 per train (per journey if to/via Germany)
  • NMBS/SNCB: €6 per train

Now for some reason, Interrail are booking some of their reservations via NMBS/SNCB. That is already an expensive provider and then they add their own 2€ booking fee.

Thanks a lot @rvdborgt , still I am a little pissed because of that policy. But I see the point, that i in future only buy the pass there and all the extras directly at the railway organization. I should have been more careful after recognizng, that even if I buy them via Eurail hey do not show up in the account. That I found strange.

Later I found out, that they are in the account, but not connected to the travel days, like i expected.

Not very sufficient.

But anyhow thanks for Your reply!

Regards

Kira

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