Have Eurail Actually save money

Have Eurail Actually save money -

UPDATE :. THE CONTENT OF THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED IN A NEW POST from 2013 CLICK HERE THAT THE POST TO READ

two years ago, I traveled throughout Europe with a rail pass. I had a lot of travelers hit that uses these tickets, and save money on travel in my never ending quest, I wanted to see if a rail pass with would save me money. At that time it did.

The post received a few comments from other travelers, as Eurail Passes her travel was ruined. They did not save money, they could not take certain trains or were kicked trains. And when I traveled Europe this summer, I met with a number of people travel tickets, all seemed happy with them. So I asked myself: "Why was there this disconnect?" What happen on a Eurail for one person makes large and another not?

During my first trip, I had the global Flexi Pass and took trains from Spain to Vienna. I saved money with the pass, because the long train rides (Barcelona to Madrid, Bordeaux to Paris, Berlin to Munich) were expensive. By stringing a lot of them with my rail pass, I saved money over the cost of buying them separately.

I have my Global Flexi Pass from Rail Europe. You are my favorite pass provider, and I use it a lot. My passport is a first-class ticket, I'm over 26 (you can not receive second-class ticket, if you are over 26), and allows for 10 trips in a period of two months. The pass costs $ 884 USD.

In combination with a now weakened euro, it was time to study again and to see if my initial trip was a fluke, and the renegades were right.

Have add up the numbers?

tickets are all about mathematics. Nothing else is to save important about them except their ability money. If they can not do that, they are worthless, so I make sure that all the numbers to follow. Here is the breakdown of costs for my trip (in euros):

[19450100] [194501019]

	With Eurail	Without Eurail (1st class)	Without Eurail (2nd class)
Cologne to Hannover	0	94	58
Hannover to Hamburg	0	66	36
Hamburg to Berlin	0	113	70
Berlin Munich	0	188	116
Munich to Salzburg	0	42.60	33
Salzburg to Vienna	0	87	51.80
Vienna to Budapest	0	39	29
Budapest to Vienna	39	29
Vienna to Brno	0	29
Brno to Prague	0	19.12	12.87
general	0	716.72	454.67

My travel costs me 0 Euro booking fees, so the only expense I had was the original cost of the pass. The price for my Buy tickets at the station would have come € 716.72, or $ 1,003.11 USD. That said, I $ $ 119.11 stored with this pass. This is not much money, but I can do a lot better things to think with $ 119.11 USD to do than use it for train tickets

Note . I use the current exchange rate of 1 USD = € 0.7145. The ticket prices reflect the cost of the day buying before

Why worked worked for the same reason my last pass
This pass the ball worked

.: I crossed many borders and visited several countries.

As we can see, short trips actually cost more with a Eurail Pass. With the Global Flexi Pass each trip is worth $ 84 USD, but the price for my quick trips (ie less than three hours) was generally around 50 euros, or $ 65 USD. I found the same last year - you lose money on short trips. But where was I saved money on the longer routes. My trip from Berlin to Munich would have taken me without the pass $ 258 USD, so I saved $ 174 USD in this case.

Why the right fit

is important

Eurail Passes only really work if you get the right fit and plan your trip well. Last minute trains cost a lot of money, and rail passes really help in these kinds of situations. So if you know where you want to go, but you prefer to make last-minute bookings, a Rail Pass will probably save you money.

If, however, as you plan each leg of your trip months in advance, you will be less able to find tickets without a passport. Advance bookings cost before up to 50% less than the tickets on the day or purchase day. If you happen to believe that the stiffness in your trip in order, then a Eurail is probably not for you. Advance my above itinerary booking (over the two-week advanced prices available to me) would have cost me € 553.72 or $ 733.74 USD, the $ 150.26 USD under , the cost of a Eurail global Flexi pass.

But then again, I like to go

with the river and almost never my travel plans well enough know tickets two weeks in advance to book. I do not think most travelers do. There were many times I have said or heard people say: "I am tomorrow to Paris" only to leave three days later. Eurail Passes are much better than to buy tickets in the day, and they keep the same "today, I'm here" flexibility.

If you are younger than 26, you can get a Eurail Youth passes, which are much cheaper (although they are only valid for second class tickets). The second-class fares on my journey added to € 454.67, or $ 636.35 USD. A youth version of the Global Flexi Pass is $ 576.00 USD, $ 60 USD cheaper than buying them separately.

You can also use a global pass for 15 days to get a result, or (if you are planning to do much of rail travel), unlimited train travel for a one-, two- or three-month period.

But if you are not "train-setting" in the whole of Europe and will instead remain in a country or only a small area, you should consider a country through. These are much cheaper than global passports. Do some research, look at train prices, to decide where you want to go, add to the cost, and compare the total to the price of a train on. I think single country goes in your favor, if you take a number of high-speed trains.

Read the fine print

by criticism After reading about Eurail, I realized that most people were unhappy because they are not money save and in most cases the fine print has not read. The devil is always in the details!

This rail passes are not a panacea savings. One wrong move and bam! disappear suddenly your savings!

For starters, get the false passport and the travel is under using definitely lead to the pass will cost you more than what you would buy issue individual cards. If you just buy whatever you pass think is good, without working the numbers, you may also pay much at the end. If you go even buy a Global Pass and then visit 1-3 countries all close to each other, you're going to lose money. And unfortunately, many people do that.

Second, you really need to read the fine print on whichever you happen to buy. For example, some countries require you to pay booking fees, while others do not. France and Italy, for example, calculate booking fees. But you do not need reservations at all in Germany, Austria or Holland. I had to pay fees, my passport when I used in 09 in France and Italy.

Finally, a big criticism of the Eurail Pass is that you make reservations for overnight trains and pay extra for it about what you paid for your pass. But this condition is, directly on the site and in the book that they send with train schedules and fees. You can not just get on a night train in each country to find a bunk bed, and go to sleep. You have your bed and pay for it to be reserved ahead. And if you do not in advance you can to get stuck in the expensive sleeper that will cost you much more than a night in a hostel booking. Tickets which reduce costs for sleeper trains, but unlike the daytime trains, not eliminate them.

And I think when people see these things only at the station, it acidifies their experiences around the ball.

these passes twice and listening to other people talk about their experiences, I still think they are very much after use. They would be still around and popular when they were the big rip off detractors, they said were. But like everything else to save in travel, money includes research and know your options. A rail pass is a good investment if you put the time in to make sure that the numbers add up.

If you went to the site and still scratching their heads about the pass options and numbers, feel email! I am happy to answer any questions that you might have.

If you want to book a pass, I use the company Rail Europe. Rail Europe is the largest broker of European rail passes outside Europe. Every time I need a passport, I will buy from them because they are much cheaper than any other option in the rule. They have great customer service, frequent sales and operations in Europe, if something goes wrong. You can down looking for passes and tickets to the widget. It is to take away rights to their website

. Note: Use the links on this page will generate (at no extra cost to you) a small commission on all sales. I recommend this company, because I use it myself. Use not receive Rail Pass if your trip does not fit the criteria above, but if you have a permit here the links with me, will continue to give you advice, you can travel better. When you do not want to use the links here, you can visit their website directly raileurope.com. If you have any questions about passports, email me at [email protected] and I'll help you figure it out!

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