Trains in Central Europe

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Hi,

We will be visiting Central Europe next week - we are arriving Salzburg on August 1, and will then travel by train to Budapest, Vienna and Prague.

We haven't booked any train tickets yet. Our choices now are:

(1) Book point to point restricted tickets on the train operators website - these are for specific trains and not flexible (booking Budapest to Vienna is a challenge on the MAV website) - approx works out to Euro 125 per peson
(2) Buy a eastern europe eurail pass for 5 days - Euro 153 per person
(3) Buy tickets directly at the station on the day of the travel - gives us flexibility to choose the train that we want to take - not sure if the costs will be the same as Option 1.

Any suggestions would be very helpful.

Thanks.

...will then travel by train to Budapest, Vienna and Prague.

Might be a good idea to travel Salzburg-Vienna-Budapest-Prague, thus avoid going leg Vienna-Budapest twice (all the trains from Salzburg to Budapest travel through Vienna), plus it will be a cheaper solution, since Salzburg-Vienna tickets start from 19 euro (discounted from OeBB bought in advance for specific train) or 25 euro (full fare, WestBahn), then Vienna-Budapest 19 euro (discounted bought in advance) or 36 euro (full fare) and finally Budapest-Prague (discounted from 19 euro)

...booking Budapest to Vienna is a challenge on the MAV website

Not sure if you've seen it, but we have a special step by step guide for buying tickets from MAV website - http://europetrainsguide.com/Advice/How-to-Buy-Train-Tickets/Hungary-MAV.html , it can simplify the task a bit

not sure if the costs will be the same as Option 1.

No, discounted tickets are rather essentially cheaper, so in case you arrive at the station and try to purchase your tickets before departure then you'll pay more. In case of your original itinerary (Salzburg-Budapest-Vienna-Prague) it will be 79,6 euro (full fare Salzburg-Budapest), 27 euro (full fare Budapest-Vienna bought in Hungary) and 64,2 euro (Wien Meidling-Prague). Discounted tickets (--> bought in advance and for the specific train) instead add up to 39 euro (Salzburg-Budapest), 13 euro (Budapest-Vienna) and 29 euro (Vienna-Prague). Although all of the above discounted fares are the lowest available, while since your travel date is rather soon the cheapest ones might be already sold out for certain departures