Schlomo

Hi:

I am an American traveling in a couple of weeks in Norther Europe. I
will be taking a bunch of one way trains (Frankfurt to Bonn, Bonn to
Amsterdam, and Amsterdam to Brussels) on known dates and rough times.

Is it worth it to buy the ticket in advance at a site like
www.raileurope.com/? They seem to add on some delivery fee making it
seem like a bad idea, but I have no idea if these trains sell out in
advance. Any advice (or alternate sites) would be useful.

Thanks,
Schlomo

Hatunen

On Fri, 06 Jun 2003 21:30:52 GMT, [email protected] (Miguel Cruz)
wrote:

    >Schlomo wrote:
    >> I am an American traveling in a couple of weeks in Norther Europe. I
    >> will be taking a bunch of one way trains (Frankfurt to Bonn, Bonn to
    >> Amsterdam, and Amsterdam to Brussels) on known dates and rough times.
    >> Is it worth it to buy the ticket in advance at a site like
    >> www.raileurope.com/? They seem to add on some delivery fee making it
    >> seem like a bad idea, but I have no idea if these trains sell out in
    >> advance. Any advice (or alternate sites) would be useful.
    >Raileurope is very expensive.

It appears that Raileurope is not adjusting their prices to the
rising value of the euro, and their fares appear now to be more
in line with fares in Europe, although, as usual, YMMV. Needless
to say, they still tout the "standard" fares rather than any of
the almost bewildering variety of fares and discoutns available.


************* DAVE HATUNEN ([email protected]) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

Miguel Cruz

Schlomo wrote:
    > I am an American traveling in a couple of weeks in Norther Europe. I
    > will be taking a bunch of one way trains (Frankfurt to Bonn, Bonn to
    > Amsterdam, and Amsterdam to Brussels) on known dates and rough times.
    > Is it worth it to buy the ticket in advance at a site like
    > www.raileurope.com/? They seem to add on some delivery fee making it
    > seem like a bad idea, but I have no idea if these trains sell out in
    > advance. Any advice (or alternate sites) would be useful.

Raileurope is very expensive.

The routes you mention have extremely frequent service, so you shouldn't
have any trouble. Most of them don't have a reservation mechanism anyway -
you just buy a ticket and show up (an exception being certain high-speed
trains like the Thalys, but from Amsterdam to Brussels there's not much
reason to use it). In some cases (Germany) you get a discount for advance
purchase but you won't get that discount from RailEurope. Just buy them as
soon as you can after arriving in Germany.

miguel
--
Hit The Road! Photos and tales from around the world: http://travel.u.nu
Latest photos: Maldives, Dubai and Vietnam

Ryan B

"Schlomo" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
    > Hi:
    > I am an American traveling in a couple of weeks in Norther Europe. I
    > will be taking a bunch of one way trains (Frankfurt to Bonn, Bonn to
    > Amsterdam, and Amsterdam to Brussels) on known dates and rough times.
    > Is it worth it to buy the ticket in advance at a site like
    > www.raileurope.com/? They seem to add on some delivery fee making it
    > seem like a bad idea, but I have no idea if these trains sell out in
    > advance. Any advice (or alternate sites) would be useful.
    > Thanks,
    > Schlomo

Buying tickets through Rail Europe will cost you 20-30% more than buying at
the ticket counter in Europe. Ask anyone. Relax. You will have no trouble
getting your tickets on day of travel.
Have fun.
Ryan

Schlomo

Thanks everyone for those prompt and helpful comments. Overplanning on
my part it sounds like

Schlomo

PS And sorry for the multiple posts of my orginal request.

Schlomo wrote:
    >
    > Hi:
    >
    > I am an American traveling in a couple of weeks in Norther Europe. I
    > will be taking a bunch of one way trains (Frankfurt to Bonn, Bonn to
    > Amsterdam, and Amsterdam to Brussels) on known dates and rough times.
    >
    > Is it worth it to buy the ticket in advance at a site like
    > www.raileurope.com/? They seem to add on some delivery fee making it
    > seem like a bad idea, but I have no idea if these trains sell out in
    > advance. Any advice (or alternate sites) would be useful.
    >
    > Thanks,
    > Schlomo

Rita

On Fri, 06 Jun 2003 23:19:18 -0400, Schlomo wrote:

    >Thanks everyone for those prompt and helpful comments. Overplanning on
    >my part it sounds like
    >Schlomo
The great thing about getting around Europe by rail is that
one does not need to plan much in advance. Thus you can
be flexible and not account for every day before you actually
get there and decide when you want to leave a city.