German Railways (DB) has introduced the ability to purchase tickets for several other European countries on its website. Both standard full fares and discounted special offers are available, reports Travel.ru.
Countries already included in the German railways' booking system include France, Italy, and Austria, as well as Thalys high-speed trains between France, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands. Reservations for Eurostar trains traveling under the English Channel from London to Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam are also promised soon. For bookings, please use the dedicated website www.international-bahn.de. For tickets originating or terminating in Germany, you can use the regular booking system at www.bahn.de.
It's worth noting that in Italy and Austria, the German Railways website only sells tickets for services operated by the main national operators—OEBB in Austria and Trenitalia in Italy. Tickets for alternative carriers (Westbahn in Austria, Italo in Italy), which may be cheaper or more convenient for a specific trip, are not available on the DB website.
Furthermore, in most cases, especially when traveling internationally, it makes sense to check all available resources—both the DB website and the websites of local carriers. For example, on the Vienna-Budapest line, the DB website only sells tickets for Austrian-operated trains, while the Austrian Railways (OEBB) website also offers Hungarian trains. The DB website may also lack certain transfer options available on national websites. At the same time, for some journeys (for example, Paris-Rome), the DB website may offer significantly better fares than the websites of French or Italian railways.
One potential complication on the DB website is the requirement to enter a specific train station name instead of a city name for some items. For example, when traveling to or from Paris, the correct train station must be entered, otherwise the system will return data for several hours later than the requested time. Furthermore, the passenger's date of birth must always be included with any request, otherwise the system will not display fares in the next step.
German Railways intends to expand the number of countries where travel is available for booking on the DB website. DB has, for many years, offered timetables for nearly all European countries, including Russia.
Source: travel.ru
