As I said in my recent post, my father is coming to Europe. He’s going to be spending a few days in Vienna, but I would also like to go and visit him during his trip while he’s in Germany. Since I’m in Europe, I can actually take a look at what it costs to take the train because sometimes the train can be significantly cheaper than a plane - just depends on when you’re planning on traveling.
Since I’m not going to be traveling during the holiday season (I’ll be looking to travel during April), there aren’t really any special deals going on. I also don’t have one of those cards that you pay for so you can travel cheaper with either the Austrian ÖBB or the German DB (the two train companies), so this is a pure price comparison.
The tickets to fly to either Stuttgart or Berlin are about €115, give or take a few euro, and that price includes my return ticket to Vienna and is with either German Wings, Austrian Airlines or Air Berlin/Fly Niki - all the airlines were within a few euro of each other, so from there it’s really taste, I suppose.
The price from ÖBB? €126 to Stuttgart, one-way! To Berlin? Not much better: €129. Again, one-way! My first thought: “It’s no wonder that ÖBB is slowly going under…” I didn’t even bother asking what the return ticket would cost me but it honestly would not have surprised me had the man on the telephone (their website wouldn’t give me the price, I actually had to call…) asked me for my first-born child. I just thanked him and hung up.
I headed over to the DB website to see if maybe they had a better price. Not likely considering they’re using the same tracks and only the trains are likely to be any different, but you never know. At first glance I was quite surprised: an overnight train costs €39 and a train during the day €62! Awesome (and I didn’t even have to call)! Then I realized that this only includes the trip to Stuttgart. When I checked what the return trip would cost and I was offered two prices: approx. €121-101, depending on when I left, for a special savings offer and this required that I be on that train at that time and there was no possibility to change my ticket. The normal ticket is twice the price, so no chance in hell of that. But then just looking at the price to get back is more than the price to fly there and back with the PLANE.
Quite the little underhanded tactic - show me a great price to get me in the door and then slap me in the face with the other half of the trip. I hate it when companies do this, I don’t care who they are. I’d much rather you be up front with customers or potential customers rather than pulling a bait and switch.
It really doesn’t surprise me that trains are dying. Sure, planes pollute more, but when I can get to my destination in an eighth of the time at less than half the price, why would I take the train? If the train was cheaper, though, I could certainly imagine taking the train. It’s nice to see the countryside from the window of a train, there’s no airport security and I don’t have to worry about crashing, but really, when you want to charge me that much and you take that long to get me there, I’d rather deal with airport security and take my chances with the plane.
(image courtesy of Kleine Zeitung)
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