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Home > > FAQs > Cost comparison worksheet |
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The following is an accounting of the rail expenses of a trip my wife and I made to Germany several years ago. It is intended as an example of how to do an analysis of the most effective (i.e., least expensive) way to ticket a trip. I used an Excel spreadsheet so costs would be automatically summed and changes accounted for when made.
We landed in Stuttgart, went by train to Rothenburg for two nights, then to Berchtesgaden for three, then to Fischen in the Allg�u for a week, including multiple trips to places of interest in the Iller valley, including Kleinwalsertal. We also made a day trip to Lindau. We left Fischen with an all day trip to Sigmaringen via Ulm. The last day we went to Herrenburg in Baden-W�rttemburg, then flew out of Stuttgart the following morning. A few things have changed since then, most notably the exchange rate, the price of railpasses, and the prices of fares and L�nder tickets. However, I have adjusted for these changes and the chart below reflect the prices you would see today.
While in Fischen, we used our "Kurcard" to purchase (shown at today's price of �20 per person) an Oberallg�u pass which provided free travel for a week on all trains and buses in the Oberallg�u region for the week. Further analysis showed that this travel would have cost us �77,20 at full fare (all regional) prices.
Fares are for two people in 2nd class. |
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Std fare
� 72,00
122,00
108,00
77,20
53,60
70,00
11,30
�514,10 |
Rgnl fare
� 59,20
91,60
80,00
77,20
53,60
57,60
11,30
430,50 |
Railpass
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
77,20
Day 4
Day 5
11,30
293,70
88,50
382,20 |
L�nder Tix
� 50,00
25,00
25,00
40,00
25,00
30,00
11,30
206,30 |
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Ba-W� and Bayern Tickets
Bayern Ticket
Bayern Ticket
Allg�u Ticket
Bayern Ticket
Sch�nes-Wochenende Ticket
Point to point tickets
5 day German Rail twin pass
Misc point to point tickets |
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from Stuttgart
Note: all "to" are "from" previous destination
to Rothenburg odT
to Berchtesgaden
to Fischen i.A.
around Fischen
to Lindau RT
to Sigmaringen via Ulm
to Herrenberg
Total |
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Std fare and Rgnl fare were taken from the DB website using "Means of transport" set to "Standard search" and "only local transport" respectively. Railpass prices were taken from the RailEurope website, converted to Euro at the exchange rate (approximately $1.27/EUR) from Oanda.com for that day. Lander Tix prices were taken from the DB website, and are the prices from ticket automats. Prices from a ticket counter would be an additional �2. |
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So, for this particular trip we can see that purchasing standard fare tickets for all of the legs would have cost us �514,10. A few of these legs (four) would have been express trains (ICE, EC, IC). Usng express trains for those legs would have saved 1 hr 40 minutes, total. For these destinations, the rest of the legs have only regional trains. Thus, had we bought only regional tickets, we would have paid �430,50, not much less than standard tickets. We could have purchased a 5 day German Rail twin pass, for �293,70. With the railpass, we still would have had to pay standard (regional) fare for the miscellaneous trips around the Iller Valley, because no day came close to the cost of a rail pass day. Also, for the last day, from Sigmaringen to Herrenberg, the regional fare was fare less than a day of a railpass, so we just bought point-to-point tickets. Total cost of a railpass and miscellaneous trips would have been �382,20. Lastly, by taking advantage of L�nder tickets and a Sch�nes-Wochenende Ticket, as well as the Allg�u Pass, we actually spent �206,30. Note that on the first day, we used the Baden-W�rttemberg pass from Stuttgart to the Bavarian border, and the Bayern pass from there to Rothenburg. Doing it this way cost �206 (about $262) way less than standard tickets and �176 ($230) less than we would have spent with a railpass. |
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