Money Saving Tips when Booking European Train Tickets Online

For journeys on which limited numbers of discounted tickets are placed on sale, the savings to be made make it worth persevering with booking train tickets online.
Aside from in Belgium and The Netherlands, you can make savings by booking European EXPRESS trains in advance; and the overwhelming majority of online train ticket bookings involve taking no more than seven steps!
And you don't always have to bother with registering with an online booking service

However, HOW you take those steps can vary hugely from one booking service to another, hence the step-by-step guides below to making your own bookings; more of these are coming soon.

These variances between each booking service include, but are not limited to:

• how a main station in a city is indicated,
• whether then names of towns/cities are translated or not,
• the order in which you take some of the steps - you may have to choose a journey before a travel date etc,
• how you access the terms and conditions of each type of ticket,
• whether discounted tickets can be exchanged or refunded,
• whether the TOTAL price of making a journey is initially shown,
• a choice of ticket types, or only one option
• whether only direct international journeys are available, or whether you can also book international journeys that involve a change of train etc.

(1) Check the terms and conditions of the specific type of tickets; the usual (but not consistent) rule is that the more heavily a ticket has been discounted, the less likely it is that you will be able to exchange it or claim a refund.
Many of the cheapest types of discounted tickets cannot be exchanged or refunded at all; though this isn't universal.

(2) Double check the details of the trains (departure dates and times) you are about to be charged for, before making the payment.
When hunting for a good deal it can be all too easy to forget that you have changed a travel date in one direction, but not another, OR have left a train in your ‘basket’, that you no longer want to take etc.

(3) Consider the delivery options carefully; if you’re booking from outside your home country the easiest and cheapest options can be to collect from a station, or to receive an e-ticket which you can print or download to your phone.
Check that your printer is working before you opt for ‘print at home’.

(4) Even if it’s optional, entering your mobile phone number can be a good idea; many ticket services will send you SMS/text messages if any subsequent changes are made to the train services that you have booked tickets for.

When trying to book for the cheapest possible price, try to:

(1) Book as soon as the discounted tickets are placed on sale:

This can vary from 1 month – 6 months ahead. The specific booking period is included with each journey on our guides.
On some booking sites, including SNCF Connect, you can sign up for alert services that will let you know when tickets have been released for sale.

The usual* ticket booking windows are:

• 1 month ahead = Poland
• Up to 2 months ahead = Denmark
• Up to 2 months ahead = Czechia/The Czech Republic
• Up to 2 months ahead = Hungary*
• 12 - 13 weeks ahead = Norway
• Up to 3 months ahead = Great Britain
• 2 - 6 months ahead = Spain the AVE trains to/from Madrid and the TGV trains between France and Spain are now available up to 6 months ahead.
• Up to 4 months ahead = the IC day and night trains in Italy
• Up to 4 months ahead = Eurostar formerly Thalys trains trains
• Up to 6 months ahead = Austria
• Up to 6 months ahead = France
• Up to 6 months ahead = Germany
• Up to 6 months ahead = the Frecce trains in Italy
• Up to 6 months ahead = Sweden
• Up to 6 months ahead = Switzerland - this is a recent change!
• Up to 6 months ahead = Eurostar formerly Thalys trains trains - this is a recent change!
• up to 330 days ahead = Eurostar trains
  **= the more basic Ouigo services in France can now be booked up to 9 months ahead

*= The ticket booking booking windows can be shorter when looking up journeys in September and November for travel after the second Sunday in December.
The reason being is that new pan-European train timetables commence on the second Sunday in December and tickets cannot be released for sale until timings are confirmed; and this timetable work is carried generally carried out between mid September and early November.

(2) Be flexible re: your departure and arrival times and even your travel dates:

Having looked up tickets for when you want to travel, it can be worth looking through the earlier and later departures to see if you can find tickets at a cheaper price either side of your optimum departure/arrival times.
On certain booking sites such as DB (Germany) and SNCF Connect (France) 'cheapest fare finder' tools are available, so that you can hone in on the cheapest departures on a particular date.

(3) You will be less likely to find tickets at the cheapest possible price on:

(this is necessarily broad advice):

• Trains due to arrive in major cities between 08:00 and 10:00 on Mondays – Fridays.
• Trains departing from major cities between 15:30 and 18:30 on Mondays – Fridays.
• Any train departing between 14:00 and 20:00 on Fridays and Sundays year round, but particularly between June and September.
• Departures either side of public holidays, particularly Easter and Christmas.
• Routes that have particularly infrequent trains.
• Routes to and from holiday destinations at weekends (the coast in the summer, ski resorts in the winter).

(4) Check 1st and 2nd class tickets:
If the most heavily discounted 2nd class tickets are sold out, the 1st class equivalent may still be available.
When that is the case the 1st class discounted price can be the cheapest fare available, or the price difference between 1st and 2nd class can be only a few €s.

(5) Take a slower train:

For journeys of around less than three hours, alternative slower train services can be available, including:
Regio trains in Germany
Regionale Veloce trains in Italy
TER trains in France

When the most heavily discounted tickets for the express trains have sold out, these alternative trains can be cheaper.

(6) Take a more basic train service:

On some long-distance routes in Austria, France, Germany, Spain and now Great Britain, operators of more basic, but lower-cost trains, compete with the standard express trains:
France = Ouigo
Germany = Flix
Austria = Westbahn
Spain = Ouigo and avlo
Great Britain = Lumo

In general these trains may lack features which have become the norm; bar counters, large luggage racks, Wi-fi, a choice of travel classes etc, but they usually match the speed of the conventional express services and can be more than 50% cheaper.

(7) Be open to using railcards:

When visiting as a tourist and travelling by train in Austria, Czechia, France, Great Britain, Germany or Switzerland you don't have to be resident on in those countries to purchase railcards.
Then once purchased you can use them to obtain discounts, typically of 30-50%, on rail tickets, and usually you'll start to make an overall saving once you have booked 2 or 3 long-distance journeys.

(8) Check whether an InterRail or Eurail pass will be cheaper:

If you will be making an exceptionally long international journey and the price of an end-to-end booking, or a combination of separate tickets, is more than €250, it can be worth crunching some numbers to see if a Eurail or InterRail 'Global' pass, valid for 4 days of travel will be a money saver - you won't have to be travelling for 4 days to use the pass.
Though keep in mind that the ticket costs will include any mandatory reservations, but for the rail passes, such reservations will be an additional cost; In particular be aware that Eurail and InterRail passes only cover around 75% of the costs when travelling in a sleeper cabin on a night train.

We've produced detailed guides to how to book the optimum tickets for your journey in these countries:

Austria l Belgium l Czechia

Denmark l France l Germany

Great Britain l Hungary l Italy

Norway l Poland l Spain

Switzerland l The Netherlands

We've also split these more GENERAL tips for booking the cheapest possible tickets, which you can find below, into two parts;

1. what to beware of when booking the cheapest possible tickets for direct journeys,
2. what to look out when booking the cheapest possible tickets for indirect journeys involving connections between trains,

(1) On these train services, advance tickets are NOT discounted, so there's no need to hunt down the best possible deal online, you'll pay the same price if you book at the station.

• Any train journey within Belgium
• Any train journey within The Netherlands
• Most Regio train services in Germany
• Regionale Veloce and Regionale trains in Italy
• TER trains in France
• REX trains in Austria
• MD and Regional Express in Spain
• Oresundtag trains between Denmark and Sweden
• On virtually all independent railway lines in Switzerland.

(2) When making journeys by train within some Eastern European countries, including Hungary and The Czech Republic, you will more often than not only save the equivalent of a couple of euros by booking in advance online.

(3) On routes/journeys on which limited numbers of discounted tickets are placed on sale, you will normally have a choice of between two or three types of ticket:

• most discounted;
• cheaper than the full price;
• and full price standard tickets.

These THREE types of ticket are summarised below:

(1)The cheapest types of ticket(s) are ONLY valid for the specific departure you have chosen; and they typically cannot be refunded if YOU subsequently change your travel plans (Prems tickets for journeys by TGV and Intercités in France, have refund options).

It's likely that you may not be able to even exchange these tickets to a different departure, if you subsequently change your travel plans; and even IF you can exchange them, you may have to pay an admin fee.
So booking the cheapest tickets months ahead, can be a false economy.

(2) Discounted tickets which can be refunded for an additional fee, and/or can be exchanged with or without paying an admin fee.

These tickets will be more expensive than the cheapest tickets, but can actually be a good option as they give you the freedom to alter your travel plans.
However, this type of ticket is less common and won't be available on routes on which those most heavily discounted tickets can be exchanged for a fee.

(3) Tickets that aren't discounted, but CAN be exchanged or refunded.

A plus of these tickets CAN be the freedom to choose your departures on your travel date, rather than being tied to specific trains to and from your destination.
Though on trains with compulsory reservations you'll still need to have booked a specific departure, the big advantage of this type of ticket is that if need be, you can transfer them to another departure at no extra cost.

The online price of these tickets that can be exchanged or refunded, is also usually the price you would pay if you booked tickets last minute at the station.

(4) A sliding scale of ticket prices can be applied to some/most/all departures; this can also be called airline style pricing.

How this works in practice:

• For the type/types of tickets that are discounted, batches of tickets will be assigned different prices.
• When the batch of tickets at the cheapest possible price has sold out, the price will rise, usually in increments of €5 or €10.
• So the prices of the discounted type(s) of ticket, can rise until they're only available at the maximum price for each TYPE of ticket.
• If these tickets, at the maximum price point for that type of ticket also sell out, then that type of ticket comes off of sale and will no longer be available.

(5) Each specific departure per day is usually treated in isolation; so the very cheapest prices may not be available at all on certain departures.
The more popular a departure is likely to be, the less likely it is that the very cheapest prices usually found on a route, will be made available on that particular train.

(1) In common with booking direct journeys, you can save money by booking in advance for this type of multi-train journey - because you will be booking before the most heavily discounted tickets have sold out.

(2) Those terms for booking the cheapest tickets for the direct trains, such as:

• restrictions around exchanges and refunds, if YOU want to alter your travel plans
• having to travel by specific trains etc
  are ALSO usually applied when booking end-to-end journeys which involve changes of train.

(3) The fact that the trains you will be connecting INTO can be specified on your ticket, means that it's worth paying particular attention to the time, which the ticket agents are allowing for making the connection(s) between trains.

(4) Complications with using tickets in the event of a train delay, leading to a missed connection into a specified train departure are unlikely, but should be considered when booking; hence our guide to booking and using tickets for such journeys.

Now it's time to take the plunge and book your journey.
Hence the guides to what to look out for when using the national rail ticket booking services, which can be accessed below.

Or if you will be taking a journey on a popular route, you will find the specific booking links and ticket info for more than 1000 journey options on our JOURNEY GUIDES.

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