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331
« on: April 23, 2013, 12:48:22 pm »
First of all really sorry for a bit late reply, were traveling for quite a bit and had no decent connection to the internet, so couldn't answer your question earlier, we apologize i have spoken with the bank regarding our card and they can confirm it is not the card but TGV.
Would you know what the problem is? Well, unfortunately it does happen sometimes, we heard a number of stories about TGV website rejecting bank cards. Apparently now you have a few options: a) contact tgv-europe direct and ask what is wrong and why they don't except you *Name of the Bank* card, maybe they will be able to clarify the issue; b) try to purchase same tickets via French website voyages-sncf.com, it's the one all the locals book, however it's only in French, so you'll kind of need to use google translate; c) if you ok moving you departure earlier or later, then you can try buying tickets for iDTGV trains on their website - idtgv.com/en/ , maybe there your card will work. If none of the above works, then you probably will be left to use some agency or reseller, which is obviously not the best option, but waiting and buying already in France won't do you any good either also i would rather pay with paypal but the paypal box does not come up when you get to the payment section. Apparently it's not available for all customers and in all cases, nothing we can do here 
332
« on: April 15, 2013, 03:02:40 pm »
I have checked the tgv site for train travel for 21st August.
I know that you can't book until 92 days in advance but i just looked an was able to book now. Apparently something changed, it used to be only iDTGV trains available that long in advance, but anyway 177 euro in total for the first class is a good price, so if you ok with time of the day and ticket conditions, then why not book it now The part i don't get is where you book for seating preference as it comes up with so many to choose from.---such as;
1.beside
2.upper deck
3.lower deck
4.club four
5.lounge
6.upper deck club four
7.upper deck lounge
8.lower deck club four
9.lower deck lounge
what is club four etc etc etc. Well, first options ('besides', upper/lower deck) are kind of self explanatory, while 'club four' it's just 4 seats around one table, thus two passengers will face other two passengers, 'lounge' is a sort of separated salon at the end of the first carriage (it was designed for business passengers who might need to arrange some kind of meeting there etc.). Also you can read about seating options on tgv-europe website - http://help.tgv-europe.com/en/france-europe/on-board-seating-positions
333
« on: April 07, 2013, 04:26:38 pm »
I got confused and entered my name on the first ticket (Venice > Wien) and my partner's on the second (Wien > Venice). Will this be a problem boarding the train? Does the name on each ticket have to be the same as the name on the credit card that booked that ticket? Will an official or someone check this? We are travelling both routes together. Well, when two passengers traveling on one ticket (like your case?) OeBB website anyways asks just one name and not two, so honestly we don't see any problem here. On the first journey from Venice to Vienna it will be you showing your ID as a proof that it's your ticket (but in most cases conductors won't even ask for it, it's more a formality), while on the journey back it will be your partner. Name of the passengers doesn't have to be the same as the name on the card you booking tickets with, ID check just serves as proof that it is your tickets I did contact OBB but they cannot change the name on the ticket. They suggested I cancel the tickets and rebook. Weird, maybe they misunderstood you or something, because, as was said above, in the multi-person tickets it's just one specified person traveling must prove their identity (rules state that Bei Mehrpersonen-Fahrkarten muss eine bei der Buchung angegebene reisende Person ihre Identität nachweisen), there are no field to insert names of everybody traveling on multi-person ticket I'm worried about cancellation fees as their site doesn't offer the information I need in English. I tried google translate but I still don't know what the cancellation fees are. Well, with booked online PDF self-printed tickets cancellation actually not even possible and when you book tickets online OeBB website will warn you about it. However again, from your case it doesn't really seem that you have to worry
334
« on: April 06, 2013, 06:47:23 pm »
The trip will be in June 18. Do you know if at this time of the year is hard to find tickets for this night train Brasov-Budapest? Mid June is usually not yet the peak period, plus at that point there will be 3 direct overnight trains from Brasov to Budapest, so it's 99,9% that you won't have any problems buying tickets already in Brasov, since it is very & very unlikely that all three trains will be fully sold out. Just buy it already in Romania and don't worry 
335
« on: April 06, 2013, 06:31:17 pm »
Do you know if buying the tickets via phone is available? I mean, will I have the tickets sent to my email? To our knowledge neither Hungarian Railways (MAV), nor Romanian (CFR) doesn't offer ticket sale by phone, but even if they did, it wouldn't be self-printed tickets anyway (so definitely no ticket by email), maximum would have been an ordinary paper ticket sent by regular mail. Anyway, since you travel from Romania to Hungary, it makes sense first of all to contact Romanian Railways at cfrcalatori.ro/contact
336
« on: April 06, 2013, 02:27:46 pm »
We are planning to visit Vienna, can you please provide us with some recommendations on which route is the most time and cost efficient rail route:
a) Venice to Munich, Munich to Vienna and then Vienna to Zurich or
b) Venice to Vienna, Vienna to Munich, then Munich to Zurich? Well, in terms of travel time obviously option B wins, since you won't be doing Salzburg-Vienna leg twice (as in option A with Munich-Vienna & Vienna-Zurich trips), but only once when you travel from Vienna to Munich. While in terms of costs, then with the most simple solutions total sum will be the same, since Venice to Munich or Venice to Vienna both start from 29 euro, Vienna to Munich or Munich to Vienna again both start from 29, and finally Munich to Zurich or Vienna to Zurich both start from 39 euro. However with option B and particularly Munich to Zurich journey you have a chance to save an essential sum (compared to 39 euro per person discounted ticket for direct trains) with using mentioned in previous post Bavaria Lander Ticket (which is especially great for groups and families traveling together), ferry over the lake Constance and Swiss SBB SuperSaver tickets
337
« on: April 06, 2013, 02:11:53 pm »
The MAV website says: Tickets purchased shall be printed at one of the ticket collection points in Hungary before travelling. How come? Unfortunately when passengers purchase international tickets (including discounted & offers) via MAV website Ticket Shop at the end they get not really a ticket, but just a code, which can be exchanged for a real ticket only with a help of MAV ticket machines (located at major train train station in Hungary). If you aren't able to print your ticket via MAV ticket machine, then obviously it's useless to buy it via MAV website, because you won't able to use it. Your case with Brasov to Budapest is exactly like this. Another frustrating thing is that Romanian Railways (CFR) doesn't sell international tickets online, so at the end your only choice is to buy ticket already in Romania at the ticket counter (obviously unless you will be in Hungry before the Brasov-Budapest trip or somebody in Hungary can print it for you and then mail it, in such case MAV website Ticket shop is a solution)
338
« on: April 03, 2013, 09:14:19 pm »
...is better to get a rail pass or to get individual tickets from the country railway authorities. That is one of the most essential & important questions many travelers ask, so let's just simply look at all your journeys and find the answer: Berlin to Prague - 39 euro per person (bahn.com) Website is correct, German Railways Ticket Shop is the place to buy such tickets, however discounted tickets purchased in advance start not from 39 euro, but from 29 euro per person. Ticket sale starts 92 days in advance Prague to Budapest - ?? (cd.cz/en/ has timetables but I cant find prices) Again, the website is correct - official Czech Railways (CD) page is the place to buy, you just need to go from general page to CD eShop - cd.cz/eshop Tickets Prague to Budapest start from only 19 euro if bought in advance. Here you can actually travel overnight, won't give you a lot of time to sleep (00:01-8:35), but will save precious 7 hours during day time Budapest to Salzburg - 39 euro per person (mavstart.hu / buy from ticket window) Already discussed options in the other topic Salzburg to Munich - 35 euro per person (internationalrail.com.au) Forget about agencies like that, they just take advantage of inexperienced travelers and serve as a middle man, obviously charging their own commission. The thing you need for Salzburg to Munich journey is German group ticket for Bavaria - Bavaria Ticket (more about DB Lander Tickets on our Germany page). Bavaria ticket is valid from Salzburg and sold in Salzburg, so you can buy it simply before departure - 22 euro for one person, 26 for two, 30 euro for three and up to 5 passengers, traveling with Bavaria Lander Ticket will be cheap and easy Munich to Switzerland (Interlaken or Saas Fee) - ?? Here you have two options: a) easier will be just to buy in advance discounted ticket via mentioned above DB website, tickets like Munich to Interlaken start from 39 euro per person; b) more complicated and time consuming option will be again to take advantage from Bavaria Ticket - for instance use it from Munich to Lindau, then take a nice ferry ride over the lake Constance from there to Switzerland, while for Swiss part just get SBB SuperSaver tickets, in total it will end up cheaper than 39 euro per person + more fun Switzerland (Interlaken) to Venice - ?? (sbb.ch has timetables but I cant find prices) Well, here it's not very easy to get the ticket and price you want, since there are no direct trains from Interlaken to Italy. Nearest direct train to Venice is from Brig (roughly an hour from Interlaken), while train to Milan is from Spiez (roughly 15-20 min. from Interlaken). Discounted tickets like Spiez to Milan start from only 27 CHF (app. 22 euro) and can be purchased via Swiss Railways (SBB) website, you'll need SBB TicketShop and section "Trips in Europe" --> "The lowest fares for direct services to major cities in Europe" Venice to Rome - 30 to 40 euro per person (trenitalia.com) Purchase in advance via trenitalia website can get you tickets for as low as 19 euro person actually (or 9 euro when we speak about Milan to Venice in case you go Interlaken-Spiez-Mian), if you don't catch those, then next price level is 29 euro, these ones are much easier to get. Also besides Italian Railways (TrenItalia) the route from Venice to Rome is served by new train company Italo, because of competition with TrenItalia their fares time to time might be better, so check both companies ...and additional fees for booking (it would be good to do some overnight trips, so I am assuming there would be additional fees for a sleeper?) If you book via mentioned above official websites of railway companies (and not via various rip-off agencies) then you won't be charged any additional booking fees. Regarding sleeper reservations, the only journeys where you can count on more or less potential overnight trip is Prague to Budapest and Venice to Rome, in both cases reservation fares are rather mild (20-30 euro) if I say on average each trip would cost 45EUR that is equivalent to approx 56AUD, therefore 7 trips, at this price, would work out better than the rail pass. But it would be good to know if this is a decent assumption? Well, as you can see from the above, the average is even less than 45 euro, so in these terms pass is useless. However remember that almost all the point-to-point fares mentioned are discounted tickets requiring in advance purchase + with some exceptions they are nonexchangeable & nonrefundable, thus will save you money, but won't give much flexibility with your itinerary.
339
« on: April 03, 2013, 08:15:59 pm »
Can someone please advise us how to get from Venice to Budapest by train with our bicycles? Well, there are two major rail options for journeys from Venice to Budapest: a) overnight trains from Venice to Vienna (currently 20:57-8:08 or from Venice-Mestre 1:30-8:30) and then change in Vienna for train to Budapest, nearest is at 9:48 (Wien West) or 10:03 (Wien Meidling), arr. to Budapest-Keleti at 12:49. However neither of overnight trains have special compartment for bicycles, it is only available in Venice to Munich carriages (depart from Venice with ones to Vienna, but get reattached at Salzburg). So you can either buy out the whole compartment (although maybe better to email Italian Railways first and actually ask whether you need to do so) or do a trick with changing trains in Salzburg, thus from Venice to Salzburg you bicycles will travel in Venice to Munich carriage, while from Salzburg to Vienna you continue by Austrian train that has place for transporting bicycles b) travel via Slovenia-Croatia. Daytime train from Ljubljana to Budapest via Zagreb has a coach with special place for bicycles and bonus is that ticket from Ljubljana to Budapest is pretty cheap (compared to the option via Vienna), however the problem here is that train to Budapest leaves Ljubljana really early 6:35am, so in order to catch it you'll have to spend night in Slovenia. Otherwise it's pretty easy to get from Venice to Ljubljana by train - either via Trieste-Sezana or Gorizia-Nova Gorica ...but now cannot find information and where/how to book. You can book tickets from Venice to Vienna (or Salzburg) via official Italian railways website - trenitalia.com, tickets within Austria or from Austria to Budapest can be booked via official website of Austrian Railways - oebb.at (here we also have a step by step guide on how to buy trains tickets in Austria via OeBB website - http://europetrainsguide.com/Advice/How-to-Buy-Train-Tickets/Austria-OeBB.html )
340
« on: March 31, 2013, 04:37:07 pm »
Just been checking the TVG website and noticed the date we want to travel in Aug (29th) now show 1 train (Bayonne to Paris.). However has a message
In 'no booking' trains, seats are unreserved.
and only one train is listed departing at 10h28 for 79.80euro. I am assuming this is for 2 passengers. How do I know if this is a discounted seat. Should I book it. On August 28th it shows only iDTGV train (kind of cheaper version of standard TGV high-speed trains), for those sale opens 180 days in advance. And yes, price per passenger is 39,9 euro, so 79,8 euro is for two and it is a sort of discounted ticket, however not the cheapest type of discount, since if you check the same route for dates within 90 days (standard sale period for French Railways), let's say early June, you can easily find trains (including TGV) for as low as 25 euro, thus 50 euro for two passengers. 39,9 euro is a not a bad price, but maybe it makes sense to wait until it will be 90 days in advance and get even cheaper ticket (+ much more connections would open up, so you would be able to choose when you want to depart or arrive)
341
« on: March 30, 2013, 02:04:49 pm »
...but I'm having a hard time trying to get the train scheduels from infofer.ro (from cfr.ro) as it keeps giving me errors. Strange, CFR website seems to work fine. There is a "English" button at top right on cfrcalatori.ro, maybe try entering timetable via English interface. Or if you right now trying English interface, then try Romanian So I must be doing something wrong. I could look bahn.de, but didn't know if they would list all the trains or not. Usually yes, in majority of cases DB website is good enough source to check the timetable, so if you having trouble with CFR website, then just use bahn.de Bucureşti (Bucharest) - Braşov (Sat departure - think they should be the same train every Sat) Trains between Bucharest and Brasov are rather frequent, so it's not a problem to catch one any time of the day (same frequency on the way back)  Braşov - Făgăraş (round trip for a daytrip) (Mon-Wed)  Braşov - Sighişoara (round trip for a daytrip) (Mon-Wed)  Braşov - Sinaia (round trip for a daytrip) (Mon-Wed)  Once again as with Bucharest to Brasov, you an count on more or less same frequency of trains on the way back from Făgăraş, Sighişoara & Sinaia to Brasov (or just check bahn.de and see it yourself)
342
« on: March 29, 2013, 04:55:48 pm »
my son is arriving in Vienna by plane on Sunday 31 March at 20:30. He needs to get to Keszthely, Hungary from there.... Well, it is a bit problematic. Obviously there is no public transport to Keszthely at such time of the day, and it will be even difficult to get to Hungary after 20:30, since last bus to Budapest leaves Vienna airport at 19:55, while last train towards Budapest leaves even earlier and from the city. As result, we see a few options here: a) simply spend a night in hostel/hotel in Vienna and continue to Keszthely in the morning b) catch last train from Vienna to Sopron (Hungarian town near the border), it departs at 21:47 from Vienna main station (Wien hbf.) or 21:58 from Vienna Meidling station, then spend night in Sopron and continue to Keszthely in the morning by direct bus (earliest bus on April 1 leaves Sopron at 5:45am, arr. to Keszthely 8:50) c) opt for a private/shared shuttle service right after arrival to Vienna airport. It will be rather expensive (100+ euro) and not sure you can even find a company, which will be willing to take your son that late, but it is possible to try, there are a few private companies offering shuttle service from Vienna to Keszthely We would probably recommend option A, since it is not very expensive (prices for night in hostel can be as low as 15 euro) and more or less convenient. However options B & C are also on the table, so it's totally your choice. If you decide to go with option A, then let us know, we will try to describe in details how to get form Vienna to Keszthely with the morning start
343
« on: March 28, 2013, 06:36:51 pm »
Only worry now is to work out which trains need supplements and reservations! Here we can help First of all you can take a look at our "Passes" pages, there you can find the list of trains (per country) requiring supplement or reservation, but if to go precisely to your itinerary, then: a) Italy (Rome-Florence-Pisa-Venice): all the regional trains doesn't require any reservation or supplement, while InterCity and high-speed (like Frecciabianca or Frecciargento) require compulsory seat reservation - 3 euro for IC or 10 euro for high-speed trains b) Venice to Vienna overnight train requires compulsory seat/bed reservation - 9 euro (seat in 2nd class), 29 euro (6 berth couchette), 39 euro (4 berth couchette), 49 euro (3 bed sleeper), 69 euro (standard double sleeper) c) Vienna to Budapest trains doesn't require seat reservations d) Budapest to Krakow (only couchette & sleeper carriage on route to Krakow) require bed reservation 9,4 euro (6 berth couchette), 14 euro (4 berth couchette or 3 bed sleeper), 21 euro (double sleeper) e) Krakow to Prague (overnight train) seat/bed reservation required 3 euro (seat in 2nd class), 9,4 euro (6 berth couchette), 14 euro (4 berth couchette or 3 bed sleeper), 21 euro (double sleeper) f) Prague to Berlin trains doesn't require seat reservations
344
« on: March 28, 2013, 06:17:36 pm »
it is typical for today, that each railway shows only their carriages. Well, it depends, as you can see MAV shows all the carriages (no matter to whom they belong) for trains in Hungary, while e-kvytok in actual schemes omits some, however will show them during purchase process (if bed available) etc., so it really all depends on each case you are looking at, because some railways won't show any train schemes at all
345
« on: March 27, 2013, 09:01:18 pm »
Not sure if I could see Hungarian carriages (Chop - Zahony and Zahony - Budapest) on 015 Moscow to Budapest train. Could be handy. Don't think mza was ever able to show Hungarian carriages in "Tisza" train. Anyways, you can see the scheme of the train from Hungarian side:  I also tried to find information about train 144D Donetsk to St.Petersburg. In this case you should address e-kvytok.com.ua, it will show you the scheme: 
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