Europe Trains Guide Forum
General discussion => All other train travel questions => Topic started by: globenomads on July 25, 2010, 11:24:20 pm
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Hi,
I have the following questions on TCV and I was wondering if you could help to clarify on some points:
1) When does the TCV validity starts? From the date you buy them or the first date you use them?
2) How do you buy them?
I have a few months from Jan 2011 to travel Europe and am thinking of starting in Budapest -> Prague -> Germany (rest of Western Europe in an anti-clockwise direction, except UK) -> Greece -> finally ending up in Istanbul in a ferry from Greece.
Will TCV tariff help me save a lot?
Thanks
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You on your own decide from which date your ticket should be valid from. Just when you buy any ticket for specific route (in your case issued with a help of TCV tariff) you simply notify ticket cashiers about planed starting date and they will do the rest. Most of the tickets issued with TCV tariff are valid for one or two month from the starting date.
In case of your itinerary TCV ticket probably will serve you a good service, but on some parts there might be better options. For instance, for Budapest-Prague it is better to buy discounted 19 euro ticket instead of full fare TCV ticket, same story for Prague-Dresden/Berlin etc. But for travels within Germany TCV ticket probably will be better, especially if you plan multiple stops on your way, same story for France, Switzerland, Italy (to a certain extent) etc.
But we can give you more detailed advice only after you'll finalize your precise itinerary, then it will be possible to say whether it is useful to use TCV tariff ticket for this or that route or it is better to rely on other tariff options.
p.s. Czech Republic is almost perfect place to purchase all your TCV tickets for the rest of your European journey, so in this sense you planned correctly to start the journey from Eastern Europe.