Secrets of Central & Eastern Europe

 

Some tips for cheap train travel in Central and Eastern Europe 

 

Are you planing a rail trip in Central, Southeastern or Eastern Europe and searching for answers to question about how and where to find train tickets or what kind of train tickets are available for the journey you plan to take? Or maybe it makes sense to take an advantage of some specific train pass? We are here to help :) Besides a specific information about the particular countries (can be found on our 'Countries' pages), our team of rail fans will try to share with you a few general tips on European rail travel (in this case regarding train journeys in Central, Southeast and East Europe). Central Europe is still among the regions of Europe where traveling by train can be considered relatively cheap, mainly because rail fares (even in cases when you buy a standard full fare tickets) for almost any relation are much lower compared to ticket prices for any other mean of transportation (e.g. flights, buses). One of the reasons for that is that in most countries of the region domestic connections tend to be subsidized by the state, while with international tickets railway companies still use SCIC-NRT (--> more flexible and cheaper compared to the lately very popular in Western Europe 'Global prices'). Plus in Central Europe for majority of international journeys passengers are able to enjoy multiple rail offers and discounts (either it will be standard one-way/return ticket discount, CityStar ticket, limited in number Sparschiene (SparDay/SparNight etc.) promo offer etc.). Knowing these nuances associated with domestic and international fares & tariffs system can help saving your money on rail travel. And we definitely can help you with the information you might need. E.g., it might sound strange, but in some cases discounted international ticket might actually turn out to be cheaper option then buying domestic ticket for much shorter distance or ticket 'break' via certain station (--> having 2-3 separate tickets for one & the same journey instead of one through ticket) can save you a decent sum basically out of nothing and so on. Here we offer potential passengers a few tips to consider when traveling by train in Central, Southeast and East Europe:

• Ticket purchase timing matters! Many rail companies in this region of Europe tend to follow some of the marketing techniques used by their Western European colleagues, e.g. offer potential passengers limited amount of special promo price or discounted tickets (usually it's some fixed number of tickets per each departure), which are sold with an essential discount if we compare it to standard full fare ticket price. So is the instance when a golden rule 'buy early-->pay less' once again works perfectly well, because buying discounted tickets can be a great solution for passengers who have more or less fixed travel dates and mostly sure about their final travel itinerary. Just to give a couple examples. You need to get from Budapest to Prague, full fare one-way ticket here can cost up to 80 euro, but at the same time Hungarian Railways (MAV) offer limited number of discounted tickets for the same route starting from only 19 euro, thus the only thing you need to save 60+ euro is to catch those cheap train tickets while they are still available for the train & date you need. Or Warsaw to Vienna, full fare ticket cost more than 90 euro, while discounted tickets start from only 29 euro, etc. 'Catching' such discounted tickets in many cases is not very complicated task, since passengers can book these cheap train tickets online via the official websites of railway companies. In certain countries (e.g. Poland, Czech Republic) similar type of discounted tickets are also available for domestic journeys, plus sometimes you can even do a small trick - purchase international discounted ticket, but use it for your domestic journey.
• Take advantage of return tickets & CityStars! The idea behind this suggestion is rather simple - many railway companies in the region offer 'return discount' for international tickets between country A and B, in some cases discount is even greater than 50%, thus de-facto it means that purchasing return ticket is actually cheaper than buying full fare one-way (which is sold without any discount). Sounds rather absurd, but it is true, believe us. Same thing goes with CityStar tickets, which are basically a type of return tickets. You travel in a group or with children? Then definitely check whether CityStar is an option for your trip.
• 'Break' your tickets smartly! Majority of the ticket discounts in Central and Eastern Europe are offered only between neighboring countries, as result in situations when you need to travel from country A to country C via country B it might make sense not to purchase one through international ticket A to C via B, but go with a combination of two separate tickets A to B and B to C. The best part of this totally legal trick is that 'breaking' your ticket doesn't even necessarily mean that you will need to leave the train - after a ticket 'break' point just show your second ticket to the conductor and that is it. The only important thing here is that de-facto all the legs of your journey are covered, no matter whether it's one through ticket or some combination of tickets. Such 'tricks' does allow to save a fortune sometimes. For instance, let's take Ljubljana to Bratislava journey via Hungary: standard full fare SCIC-NRT ticket will cost here 103 euro, but if you buy first Ljubljana to Budapest ticket it will cost you just 19 euro (discount sparschiene) or 39 euro (Budapest Spezial offer), while ticket for the leg from Budapest to Bratislava will be only 9 euro (again, it's a discounted ticket offer). What we have here? Simple ticket 'break' via Budapest brings down your travel expenses to as low as 28 euro instead of 103 euro. Or another good example - Belgrade to Vienna and back. At the ticket counter in Serbia you'll pay 70 euro for the direct return ticket to Austrian capital, but if you buy first Belgrade to Budapest return ticket (26 euro) and then Budapest-Vienna (33 or 43 euro depending on the ticket type), then you basically out of nothing save around 10 euro. And there are dozens of other similar cases, so why not to use such totally legit way of saving your own money? All it takes is a bit of knowledge regarding ticket fares and way to combine it
  
• During recent years in many countries in the region (e.g. Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia) appeared private railway companies, which are basically created a competition to the 'big players' (= State Railways), as result on many connections where private and state companies compete passengers get a chance to travel cheaper just by chosing the right company for their travel date and time preference. So if you happen to travel in Austria (Vienna-Linz-Salzburg or Vienna-Brno-Prague lines), Czech Republic (Prague-Olomouc-Ostrava or Prague-Brno-Vienne/Bratislava) or Slovakia (Zilina-Poprad-Kosice & Kosice-Poprad-Zilina-Ostrava-Prague) why not to consider journey with a private rail company, especially if they have much cheaper ticket fare to offer?
• Though using train pass is usually not a best idea in case of this part of Europe, but in some circumstance pass still might be an option to consider. When speaking about rail passes we don't mean InterRail or even more expensive Eurail pass, but a "localy sold" passes like Balkan Flexi Pass. This train pass is a local rail pass sold by railway companies directly (can be purchased from the ticket counters only in the participating countries), unlike way more expensive Eurail and Interrail passes. Balkan Flexi pass is valid in Bulgaria, FYR Macedonia, Greece, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Turkey, both for domestic and international trips. Youth (<26) and Senior (>60) discounts are applicable. Balkan Flexi Pass not necessarily might be the cheapest solution for you, but in cases when you plan to travel a lot in the Balkan region it can be a good and reliable option.

For any particular discounts, which might be helpful for your specific itinerary and travel plans please see our 'Countries' pages or ask a question on our Forum