Originally Posted by
USFreak
I was in Europe 2 years ago and I was able to buy online and print at home. Now, it seems like this is not an option anymore? The DB website only allows tickets by mail.
Broadly speaking, for travel between Germany and Czech,
bahn.de will only self self-print online ticket for
journeys starting in Germany. (Actually, it's more complicated than that, but 'starting in Germany' is generally the key factor).
Originally Posted by
USFreak
Am I going to have to wait to get over to PRG to purchase these tickets? If not, can I purchase here in the states and get a confirmation number to take to the Prague rail station to have the tickets re-printed?
No, if you have brought a ticket from
bahn.de, you have to obtain the ticket in the manner specified at time of booking (ie: self-print, or delivered by post). You can order a ticket from DB by phone to be picked up from a ticket machine - but this only works at DB ticket machines in Germany. You couldn't collect such a ticket in Prague.
However, you should be able to buy online, self-print tickets for your journey at
www.cd.cz (Note that these tickets are
only valid for journeys starting in Czech, and for the return sector, you need to be able to show that your outbound ticket was stamped by a Czech conductor).
See
this thread and others for further details. However, the basic rule of thumb is: buy tickets from a website in the country of departure, not destination.