gaobest

I'm trying to book 2 first class tickets Vienna to Budapest online, but to no avail. The OBB (Railjet) site shows the schedule, and they have a link for buying tickets. But when I enter the information, I receive a canned response that no "offer" is available... not even a full-fare ticket.

The ticket I want is per Railjet 63 (starts in Munich; we would catch it in Vienna)
http://www.oebb.at/pv/en/All_about_T...a-Budapest.jsp

Is there a different site that I should be using???

Bahn.de is super easy to use. This site is... not easy. Wah! And Bahn.de won't sell the Vienna > Budapest ticket, understandable of course...

Thanks,
Michael

ps - I booked first class but actually want the premium class, which I can buy with a 25EU supplement at the station. So when booking my Munich > Vienna ticket, I didn't reserve seats in first class, just reserved the class... since I want the premium class. Will we be okay or should I also reserve seats even though we'd not be using first class seats?

gaobest

OK I'm so embarrassed - I had these problems on Sunday. But today all seems fine and I'm in the midst of booking tickets. Sorry for this false alarm But on Sunday I was going batty, not being able to book tickets!

Michael

price123

Bit late now, but I actually found it was cheaper to buy a ticket from Munich to Vienna and get on at Salzburg than buy from Salzburg to Vienna. In the UK this would not be allowed but the nice man at DB said "of course you can get on late/get off early. It's a train, not a prison!"

Reason077

Actually, by default this is also allowed in the UK, although in some cases it could be explicitly disallowed on discounted operator-specific fares.

See http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/system...misc/NRCOC.pdf

16. Starting, breaking or ending a journey at intermediate stations
You may start, or break and resume, a journey (in either direction in the case of a return ticket) at any intermediate station, as long as the ticket you hold is valid for the trains you want to use. You may also end your journey (in either direction in the case of a return ticket) before the destination shown on the ticket. However, these rights may not apply to some types of tickets for which a break of journey is prohibited, in which case the relevant Train Companies will make this clear in their notices and other publications.

price123

Yes but my Railjet ticket is a Europa Spezial one train only type ticket. You cannot break the journey in the UK on advance purchase tickets.

nevansm

Short of calling (somebody?) can anybody tell me how to book premium class tickets from MUC-BUD? I can only find first class, but I'd like to get the compartment confirmed ahead of time. On my last trip, I purchased on the premium cabin on the train and there were few seats left.

railways

I don't think you can do this online. However, assuming you already will have a first class ticket, you can now buy the Premium supplement/reservation at DB ticket machines up to the day before travel.

pacer142

Break of Journey is nominally disallowed on the outward portion of most Off-Peak tickets as well, though enforcement in that case is pretty much nil. I've only ever heard of it being enforced for Advance tickets.

Starting long/ending short is less clear in the case of Off-Peak tickets as nobody ever seems quite sure whether those two concepts come under "Break of Journey" or not.

Neil

pacer142

bahn.de will sell *any* ticket pretty much. If it can't quote a price online, you go through the steps anyway and send a message to their fulfilment centre, they can quote via e-mail.

Have done this before a couple of times and it worked fine.

Neil

railways

Bahn.de generally does not sell tickets where both the origin and destination are outside of Germany. Exceptions include CNL trains (e.g Basel SBB to Copenhagen), and tickets through Germany (from London, for example) to Salzburg which DB treats as a national destination.

Vienna-Budapest tickets can be bought on the OeBB website. Tickets for this journey originating in Budapest (or Vienna) can also be bought on the Mav-Start (Hungarian railways) website, but can only be picked up in Hungary (no on-line ticketing), and the instructions are currently only in Hungarian. However they are cheaper than OeBB.

pacer142

Looks like they changed that since I last did it, then:-

"Preisauskunft nicht möglich Es gilt Auslandstarif
Für Verbindungen, die vollständig im Ausland liegen gilt ein gesonderter Tarif. Diese Angebote sind nicht im Internet buchbar.

Fahrkarten hierfür können Sie in einem DB ReiseZentrum, in einem Reisebüro mit DB-Lizenz oder telefonisch beim ReiseService über 01805 99 66 33 (14 ct/Min. aus dem Festnetz, Tarif bei Mobilfunk max. 42 ct/Min.) erwerben."

...basically says they can sell it, but you have to phone up or buy in person. Shame, it was a useful service.

Neil

railways

I was talking about bahn.de/bahn.com, i.e. online. I expect they do sell the whole range of European tickets by phone.

pacer142

I know! There used to be a facility where you could book any ticket (including "Preisauskunft nicht moeglich") ones online. You would put in the request to purchase including credit card details etc by clicking the purchase link, they would email you back with the cost having dealt with it manually, you would email back to confirm or reject, and if you confirmed the tickets would be manually booked at the DB Service Center, the card charged and the tickets sent by post.

This facility appears to have gone away, which is a shame as I have found it useful in the past.

Neil

RCyyz

I realize I'm dialling the clock back to April 2009 by posting in this thread, but I'm actually having the same problem as the OP. I'm trying to buy tickets on Railjet from BUD to VIE (and back again) but the various websites - oebb.at, bahn.com won't let me. All I get is "keine Angebote". I have trouble thinking all the trains are sold out already for a March trip ... At the very least I'd like to check the official price of the tickets before I resort to going through a travel agent to get the tickets.

Any words of wisdom gang?

RCyyz

Update - Tickets seem to be awfully cheap on the MAV website - €29 per pax for 1st class and €15 per pax for the Business Class upgrade. But I still can't seem to purchase the tickets in advance.

I don't mind printing a letter / receipt then picking up the tickets in BUD at the train station (though I'd prefer to print at home). But I would like to purchase now as opposed to getting off a plane, going the station then trying to figure out how to buy tix.

Help?