Buy tickets, pass(es), combo?

[aztimm]

Looking into traveling by train between the following--

Munich to Prague
Prague to Vienna

Madrid to Valencia
Valencia to Barcelona


I've checked out some passes, and the one that looks like it would fit is the Eurail Select Pass, 5 days in 2 months, $980 for 2. Anyone think we can do better buying individual tickets?

We'll be flying VIE-MAD, then BCN-MUC.

Thanks!

[Track]

Originally Posted by aztimm

Looking into traveling by train between the following--

Munich to Prague
Prague to Vienna

Madrid to Valencia
Valencia to Barcelona


I've checked out some passes, and the one that looks like it would fit is the Eurail Select Pass, 5 days in 2 months, $980 for 2. Anyone think we can do better buying individual tickets?

We'll be flying VIE-MAD, then BCN-MUC.

Thanks!

You can do much better with individual tickets. Check bahn.de, oebb.at and renfe.es for the German, Austrian and Spanish railway websites. The select pass requires contiguous countries, and France is between Germany and Spain. $490 per person gets you a pass that includes France, but why pay for France if you're not going to travel by train in France?

[aztimm]

Ok, I did a little more research, and I think you're right--

* Munich to Prague: 58 E (savings fare)
* Prague to Vienna: 59 E
* Madrid to Valencia: 45.50 E
* Valencia to Barcelona: 36.80 E

Probably about 1/2 as much as the cheapest pass. Thanks.

[Daken]

Originally Posted by aztimm

* Munich to Prague: 58 E (savings fare)
* Prague to Vienna: 59 E
* Madrid to Valencia: 45.50 E
* Valencia to Barcelona: 36.80 E

Actually you can do much better:
Munich-Prague start from 29 euro (bought at least three days in advance on DB website)
Prague-Vienna cab be easily done for 19 euro (CD eshop)
And Web fares for Spanish routes are much lower if bought properly.

You can as well check out http://europetrainsguide.com/ for some ideas on budget European rail travel

[aztimm]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

Well after revising the itinerary, it was far less to just fly between most of the major European cities. This opened up new opportunities, as train Munich to Berlin would have been too long, but it is just an hour flight. And between Madrid and Barcelona, flights again won out. Plus, by using partner airlines, I should earn miles. I did play around between airline sites and various other engines (Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity) to get the best prices.

[stockmanjr]

Originally Posted by aztimm

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

Well after revising the itinerary, it was far less to just fly between most of the major European cities. This opened up new opportunities, as train Munich to Berlin would have been too long, but it is just an hour flight. And between Madrid and Barcelona, flights again won out. Plus, by using partner airlines, I should earn miles. I did play around between airline sites and various other engines (Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity) to get the best prices.

I strongly disagree with you about flying MAD-BCN. The train takes just under 3 hours from city center to city center versus flying where your in the air for an hour but between traveling to/from the airport,check-in time,and baggage reclaim it's going to end up taking you longer. Also as far as miles go often the cheap fares in Europe earn no or very reduced mileage.
Cheers
Howie