German Railways (DB) has introduced the possibility of purchasing tickets on its website for a number of other European countries. Both standard full fares and discount special offers are available, reports our own correspondent Travel.ru.
Countries already included in the booking system of the German railways include France, Italy, Austria, as well as the high-speed Thalys trains between France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. Booking of the Eurostar trains under the English Channel from London to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam is also promised in the near future. For booking, please use the special page www.international-bahn.de. For booking tickets with a start or end in Germany, you can use the normal booking system at www.bahn.de.
It is worth keeping in mind that in Italy and Austria, the German Railways website only sells tickets for the main national operators – OEBB in Austria and Trenitalia in Italy. Tickets for alternative carriers (Westbahn in Austria, Italo in Italy), which may be cheaper or more convenient for a particular trip, are not available on the DB website.
In addition, in most cases, especially when traveling internationally, it makes sense to check all possible resources - both the DB website and the websites of the local carriers themselves. For example, on the Vienna-Budapest line, the DB website only sells tickets for trains of Austrian formation, while the Austrian Railways OEBB website also offers Hungarian trains. The DB website may also not have individual options for transfer routes that are available on national websites. At the same time, for some trips (for example, Paris-Rome), the DB website may offer much more favorable rates than the websites of French or Italian railways.
One of the possible difficulties on the DB website is the need to enter the name of a specific station instead of the city name for some items. For example, when traveling to or from Paris, you should specify the correct station, otherwise the system will give you data not for the requested time, but for several hours later. In addition, with any request, you should always specify the passenger's date of birth - otherwise the system will not give you a list of fares at the next step.
German Railways intends to increase the number of countries where travel is available for booking on the DB website. At the same time, DB has had a timetable for almost all European countries, including Russia, for many years now.
Source: travel.ru
