The Anonymous Widower

Rail Europe And Deutsche Bahn

In my trip, that i outlined in this post, i needed to book a sleeper from Munich to Paris on the night of the 12th of April. The oracle of all things rail, Seat61.com, recommended Rail Europe, so I tried that last night.

I don’t think I’ll be using that site again.

The main problem was that after choosing my ticket, the site seemed to get into a loop with Verified by Visa and in the end, the time limit to buy the ticket expired, with me not sure, if I’d actually bought a ticket or not. I haven’t had a debit on my account, so hopefully everything is alright,

Then, this morning, I tried to phone them to find out what had happened.  After hanging on for several minutes, I got through and they couldn’t even find the account I’d created.

Another think about Rail Europe is they don’t take American Express, the card of choice for my travel.

I also wasn’t sure how they got the tickets to me.  I think they are posted, which is not the best way to receive rail tickets if you might have left for Budapest.

So after trying to talk to the monkey for a few hours, I decided I had better talk to the organ grinder; Deutsche Bahn.

I chose the same ticket, at perhaps a few more euros, but at least I was able to get the ticket to my Inbox for printing easily.

Although, why you have to print seven pages for one ticket, I do not know. The British system of little orange cards is so more economical with forests. Incidentally, Easyjet did my flight out in one page.

So if you need to buy a train ticket to, from or inside Germany, I’d use the Deutsche Bahn web site. But isn’t this just the same as buying a ticket to Derby on the East Midlands Trains web site, as I did this morning?

Rail Europe may have failed to sell me a ticket, but they didn’t deduct money from my credit card account.

It was

April 3, 2013 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Credit Cards, Germany, Ticketing, Trains