Europe Trains Guide Forum
General discussion => Train fares and tariffs => Topic started by: filu on August 23, 2011, 07:15:00 pm
-
Hello :-)
After our succesful trip around SCG, we're planning to visit Macedonia soon. Thus question how to get there cheap. Because of Your help :-), we know now how to get to Beograd cheaply. We'll try to do as follows:
1. Sparscheine to Budapest (Warszawa-Budapest 29eur or Praha-Budapest 19eur + local tickets wrom Wroclaw to Katowice or Pardubice) or if we fail then Citystar Bohumin-Budapest (+local trains from Wroclaw). Local, as we have 51% discount in Poland.
2. For Budapest-Skopje branch (we'd like to stop in Subotica, Beograd and Nis for at least couple of hours), should we simply get reurn Budapest-Beograd then Beograd-Skopje or Return for the whole?
Thanks :-)
FiIip.
-
For Budapest-Skopje branch (we'd like to stop in Subotica, Beograd and Nis for at least couple of hours), should we simply get reurn Budapest-Beograd then Beograd-Skopje or Return for the whole?
Actually ZS and MZ offers special fare for return trips on routes Beograd-Skopje or Nis-Skopje (32.6 EUR and 15.7 EUR respectively per person). Along with MAV-ZS special offer 25 EUR Budapest-Beograd-Budapest ticket it will be the cheapest option. While in case you purchase return Budapest-Skopje in Budapest, then you will get 60% off from TCV/SCIC-NRT, since discount MAV-MZ is similar to general discount for MAV-ZS, but it still will be like 10 EUR more expensive than combination of mentioned above special offers. So we would advise you to 'break' you ticket via Beograd.
-
Thank You,
I guess it will not make a difference if we go through Mladenovac and come back through Mala Krsna? Trains run on different branches between Beograd and Velika Plana.
And, if we want to make a break somewhere on the way, do we need to inform the officer about it so he can note something on the ticket?
-
Sorry about a bit late answer, had some technical issues.
I guess it will not make a difference if we go through Mladenovac and come back through Mala Krsna?
Yep, no problems at all, ZS anyway uses both lines as reverse ones for the trains from Beograd to Nis.
if we want to make a break somewhere on the way, do we need to inform the officer about it so he can note something on the ticket?
Probably not, with international tickets usually no such need exists and anyway conductors can't mark anything on it besides date and train number. It's only in certain countries with domestic tickets valid for more than a day you actually have to get a stamp or some kind of note for the stopover, and in most cases not from the conductor, but station official or service point.
-
The Beograd-Skopje offer is "Macedonia-Special". Thus it's not a direct discount from the TCV. I'm not sure we can make stops on it's way then. I remember there was a similar issue with the 'Beograd-Special', but I'm not sure.
We'd like to stop in Nis and Vranje on the way.
-
The Beograd-Skopje offer is "Macedonia-Special". Thus it's not a direct discount from the TCV.
Yep, it's not standard SET (which should cost app +10 EUR), but at the same time it's not a global price "tied" to a specific connection either, thus it's tricky.
Regarding "Beograd/Budapest Spezial" we actually looked at MAV docs and found a note stating "Az útmegszakítás nem megengedett"(=stopover not permitted) about the offer (+there is even a limitation on train use - only direct ones), so in case the same thing applies for ZS-MZ "Macedonia-Special", then you'll need to reconsider your ticketing (like go with domestic Beograd-Nis, then Nis-Skopje "Macedonia-Special" (15.7 EUR) + domestic Nis-Vranje, which you'll use either on the way there or back (basically then "Macedonia-Special" will work for you only like Nis-Skoje-Vranje or Vranje-Skopje-Nis) or maybe even domestic on part Beograd-Vranje both ways + Vranje-Skopje SET (should be around 8 EUR), so just count which set of tickets gives you the better total ;)
But also you might try asking from ZS, who knows, maybe rules of use for "Macedonia-Special" differ from "Budapest Spezial"