Originally Posted by
dingo
I am very, very confused by OBB. I am traveling from Vienna to Prague in November on a Railjet train. I was under the impression that on OBB, unlike most other modes of transport, Business Class is actually better / nicer than First Class. I'd found some videos online that showed private compartments for up to four people, which is the number in my party. I went ahead and booked for the four of us. I never got a chance to choose my seats, which seemed odd. After I completed the booking process and retrieved the PDF of the tickets, I'm completely confused.
For each person in my party, I have a page in the PDF which has no date or time for departure / arrival, no train number, shows as being in Klasse 1, and shows the route as being Wien to Praha.
Then the last page (fifth) does have the date and time, the train number, the car (wagen) number, says Klasse 1. Then in another box it says Business Class and has assigned us seats as follows:
Fenster 35
Mitte 33, 34
Gang 32
I believe Fenster = window, gange = aisle, and mitte = middle.
My big question is: what the heck are those seats? window, middle, middle, aisle isn't a thing on any train I've seen in Europe, especially in an upper class. Did I screw up this booking and not get Business? Is Business in fact better on OBB than First? It was certainly more expensive.
If anyone can help me understand what I've purchased I would be appreciative. I've hit their FAQ's and attempted to call them, but have not been successful on either attempt.
As far as I know (I do not work for ÖBB, but know some about travel) the 'business class' is more like a supplement to the 1st class tickets. So that would explain why you have 4 1st class tickets and a supplement page. For the seats, there is a handy (but it needs some instruction) website called Vagonweb.cz where you can find a lot about train order and seat numbers in carriages. Especially for central and eastern Europe. Pulling up one of the daily trains between
Vienna and Praha it shows the carriage order, if you click on the seat map below the 1st class / business class carriage, you see the following:
So seats 32-33-34-35 are indeed in one 'business class' compartment. So your tickets and reservation seems fine. Why the seats in the reservation system are labeled as 'window, middle, aisle' is something I don't know, but I do understand it can be confusing. My best guess is that they tried to describe the positioning if you look at the schematic above. 35 is directly next to the window, for 34 there is a little table between the window and seat. So it is a 'middle seat', likewise for 33: a table between the aisle and the seat and 32 is directly next to the compartment wall, so 'aisle'.