Originally Posted by
chrwhite
I just ordered a sparpreis ticket, online, for roundtrip travel from Munich to Salzburg for Saturday, March 31. I paid 29 euros for the the ticket and I have a few questions:
1. Is that roundtrip price, or is that price each way? It's not clear to me from the website, or the ticket I printed (which is in German).
2. When ordering the ticket I specified three adults would be travelling, and the language was such that it implied up to 5 adults could travel on this same ticket. So does that mean the 29 euro price covers all three adults, or is it 29.00 per person? It looks like I've only been charged for 29.00, but I don't want any unpleasant surprises when I board the train on Saturday.
Firstly, welcome to FlyerTalk,
chrwhite.
I strongly suspect you have purchased a
‘Bavaria Ticket’ (which is not actually a SparPreis ticket). If so, it should say something like “
Bayern Ticket; Klasse: 2; Erw: 5” (= “
Bavaria Ticket; Class: 2; Adults: 5”) somewhere near the top left.
The Bavaria ticket is valid:
- For up to 5 adults travelling together;
- From 09:00 on weekdays (00:00 on weekends and public holidays) until 03:00 the following morning;
- ONLY on local trains (‘nahverkehr’), labelled as IRE, RE, RB or S (and also various privately operated services in Bavaria, such as ALX, VGB and I think AG);
- Anywhere within the boundaries of Bavaria – which in this context includes Salzburg in Austria (but not any stations beyond that).
So, this ticket is fine for you and 2 other adults to travel from Munich to Salzburg and back, on the same day – as long as you use ‘local’ trains (there seems to be a RE service every hour during the day, leaving Munich Hbf at xx:42 and arriving in Salzburg Hbf 2 hours later). No reservations are necessary (nor, I think, possible) on these local trains. Even if there is an itinerary printed on this ticket, it is ‘for information only’, and you do not have to travel on the indicated trains.
However, note the Bavaria Ticket is
not valid on the faster trains on this route (ie: EC, IC or RJ), which do the journey in about 1˝ hours.
The other option for this route would be a
SparPreis ticket, which start at €19 for one person one-way, increasing by €10 for each additional person in the group (but the price increases depending on availability). These tickets must be booked at least 3 days in advance, and require you to travel on a specific EC, IC or RJ train (or ICE, but there aren’t any ICEs on this route), as printed on the itinerary on the ticket. These tickets will say something like “IC/EC Fahrkarte” (“IC/EC Ticket”) at the top-left.
In your case, the Bayern ticket (1x €29 for up to 5 adults) will be significantly cheaper than the SparPreis tickets (at least 2x €39 = €78 and possibly more), and the journey is only 30 minutes slower each way.
Hopefully this is enough info for you to identify which type of ticket you have.