adventureadam

You're in Hungary now...have you gone to a station?

Fanjet

There are no train diversions. The only construction in place is the old Südtiroler Bahnhof being remade into the new Hauptbahnof. But the international trains are stopping there.

ToGo

The old Südbahnhof was total replacey with the Hauptbahnhof.
After the Timetable Chance in December Longdistance Trans will stop there!

miho

Hi,
I'd like to book VIE-BUD train tickets and I have tried book at oebb.at/en/.
Then I received an email from OBB said that collection ticket to enter the code on self-service machines in Austria only in 15 minutes.

So I guess when I arrive at VIE, I have to find OEBB machines, use my smartphone to show up my code on OBB website and then enter the code on the machine in 15 minutes...

Revilo199

No, it says that you can pick them up starting in 15 minutes from time of purchase. There is no time limit to pick them up. I'd suggest self-printing them though, it's a lot more straightforward and hassle-free.

ToGo

I prefer the Ticket Machine. On Trains thats so easy the conductor make just a quick view and stamp it thats it. No Passport nothing... ^

airb330

I don't see why this needs to be so complicated when travel is from Budapest.

I need BUD-VIE one way. It doesn't seem possible on that awful http://www.mav-start.hu/ website. I registered, something I wouldn't have thought of without this thread, but it still doesn't work. Even when I try a roundtrip, it just points me to a screen where nothing works. Could it be because I have not input a credit card for the account yet? Regardless I just get an error trying to do a one-way.

http://i57.tinypic.com/4lj214.png

I really don't want to pay RailEurope's crazy pricing but I would like to be able to book ahead. I'm leaning towards 1st since it isn't expensive IMO. It's just annoying as I could use OEBB or the deutsche bahn website if any other combination was needed besides budapest to vienna. I have plenty of time until my trip in May but I wanted to check out the options.

ToGo

1) deinstall Norton thats the worst Application ever...
2) Use Firefox
3) If you want i can buy for you an Ticket from the ÖBB Office in Vienna and send it via Post Service to any Address you want.
Its only possible to buy a Ticket 3 Month before departure.

KQ321

If you click where it says "open" (just under '€58' in your screen-shot), it should show you a list of available trains. Once you select an outbound (and inbound, if you're booking a return) train, an 'add to basket' option should appear.

deniah

dont need to buy a ticket a head of time. the vie-bud route is never full in any cabin on any day. buy it from station before you leave. [can also do it onboard but you'd have to buy 2 segments 1 for each country]

KQ321

Yes, but aren't the Sparschiene fares shown in the screenshot above cheaper than the walk-up fare?

miho

I came back home.
Make a report of my booking, well I didn't have to pick up my ticket within 15 minutes from purchase. And my booking didn't correspond to self-printing.
I just went to tickets office in Westbahnhof to pick up my ticket. But I don't know that they made an exception or not for me.

slippahs

Having just taken the Vienna to Budapest Railjet and been booted out of many seats on the way over by those having reserved seats, I'd say YMMV on this one. (we also made the mistake of thinking "LAST MINUTE SEAT RES" above each of the seats referred to us and not to others who were paying to reserve seats). We spent the last 90 minutes of the ride standing along with a few other fellow Americans who also booked last minute tickets in Vienna without seat reservations. If you show up, make sure, at least, to pay extra and secure seat reservations, particularly if traveling on the weekend during the holiday season.

We booked on the Hungarian site for the ride back. Wish I found this thread earlier. I painstakingly spent many minutes on the site trying to figure out how to add tickets to my cart. Glad the site gives you automatic seat reservations.

railways

Here’s a timely warning coming up to the spring-summer high season for international rail travel.

I disagree strongly with deniah and agree with slippahs. On the 20 or so times I have travelled on this route during the last 12 months, the Railjets have been invariably packed. This usually means standing in the corridors in economy, and maybe a few odd seats available in first (but rarely two together). I usually take the 11:10 ex-Budapest (RJ 64) and the 15:48 ex-Wien West (RJ 65) on various days of the week.

The situation became so bad last year that on one holiday weekend in October, at the Austrian border, OeBB railway officials ejected around 200 (!) standing passengers from a Budapest – Munich Railjet because they deemed it unsafe (not for the first time, either). This made national news in Hungary and A MAV-Start executive appeared on television to explain the situation. He said that MAV wanted the trains to be reservation-only, but OeBB had vetoed this.

MAV also wants the Budapest – Vienna Railjet service to be hourly, but again OeBB has said no (presumably there are not enough Railjet sets). From last December, however, a couple of additional Eurocity trains have been introduced in each direction.

MAV-Start now includes a stark warning on its Vienna page (in bold blue, about a quarter down the page) recommending that passengers buy seat reservations, and saying that, around weekends and holidays, on Vienna-bound services, standing passengers without reservations risk being offloaded at the Austrian border.

ToGo

Long distance Travel become more and more cheaper and the Trains get overbooked.
I can say it all time "buy a 1Class Ticket in advance!" It cost from ÖBB 10€ more than the 2Class. An Seat Reservation cost ~3€.lol... like every year. All Trains are overbooked during Holidays. Everyone who dont book an Reservation are insane.