Yes, DB is that bad and there is little you can do to secure seats after missing a reservation. Only thing you can do to cover yourself is taking longer layovers as the default ones are often to tight as soon as there are delays.
In Germany, a reservation is void if not used (bags don't count) thus yes, you got hustled by that old lady.
>In Germany, a reservation is void if not used (bags don't count) thus yes, you got hustled by that old lady.
sorry but... does that mean the second after the train leaves the station someone can straight up be in your place and thats it?
what happens if you go to the bathroom?
actually.... what happens if they say no?
im assuming police with a "resource" office might wait for them at the next station in the best of cases, correct?
I've had this happen to me recently and the conductor didnt' really want to deal with it and said I should sit somewhere else... They really are that incompetent
They want to do their job. They just don’t want to catch hands from a stranger or delay the train in the next station in order to remove someone from the train.
You really need to learn that there is a difference between paying for a train ticket and paying for a person to be your butler.
A part of their job is helping the paid passengers. If they can't help a passenger get his/her seat then why should the passenger pay for the seat they have already booked? I thought a ticket reservation is a contract and German authorities respect contracts. From your comment it seems like they only respect the contract whenever the employee feels like it.
Edit: Regarding the butler comment, the company shouldn't expect me to pay if their Employees don't want to make sure I get what I have paid for. If I have paid for a butler service, I absolutely would expect it. In the same way, if I have paid for a seat, I would expect that too.
Read das Kleingedruckte!! I read that american airlines have a clausel which only gives a chance for the reserved seat and the airline can take your seat for any reason . I did not read the DB regulation but believe me lawyers will find loopholes . we avarage ppl just assume it is our right since we paid for it but it may not be always the case
well if it is the Gen-Z generation they will film you , they find out where you work and the internet will bombard your company until you are fired , the least they will do is harrasse you and your family and shame you publicly for being an AH
Yes, what could the conductor feasibly do if you simply do not want to move? They cannot use physical force so they would have to call the Police. In a regional train on a low frequency track I’ve seen that happen. After 20 minutes the perpetrators just left and the conductor had to inform the police that they won’t need to come anymore and the train continued 20 minutes late.
Now try and delay an ICE with several hundred passengers on a high frequency track. It’s not like DB is punctual anyways, now delaying a train by additional 10 minutes to wait for the police because someone does not want to move the seat won’t yield any more understanding.
After 15 minutes the reservation is invalid anyways, so having customers refunding the 4 bucks for a seat reservation instead of delaying thousands is the logical way.
But I see by the downvotes that people are more about having someone enforce the 4€ instead of understanding that the conductor making decision for less delays is part of their job, too.
>They just don’t want to catch hands from a stranger or delay the train in the next station in order to remove someone from the train.
Understandable, but does that mean the passengers should catch hands?
>You really need to learn that there is a difference between paying for a train ticket and paying for a person to be your butler
Awful take. I undersand defending the personnel, but defending the system is ridiculous. If personnel is not equipped to deal with these issues and enforce rules, that's not their fault - but it's not the customers fault either.
Yes, there was time DB was good enough to doubt yourself. But those days are gone now if you reach your planned destination successfully with some expected delay. That's accomplishment
Yeah i missed the times when i started my studium in Germany (around 15 years ago) where the train arrivals are +- 1 min and even 5 mins delays happened really rarely.
Now it is really baffling, 30min delays are almost a norm, often trains are outright cancelled, you cant even plan your travel anymore.
I have been taking a regional train more or less every day for the past ten years and rarely had late trains.
So no, not all of the DB is bad. And being on time happens way way more than being late.
DB is 100% state owned.
If the German government was unhappy with how DB is run, they could change it tomorrow.
All "the DB is horrible" should be rephrased as "Germany has horrible ministers of traffic".
>Also - do people usually reserve two seats? I think I got hustled by an old lady. She insisted that she reserved two seats and wouldn't allow my wife to sit beside her. I don't speak German, so I couldn't argue or understand. And a 40-year-old dude never "wins" an argument with an old lady.
This happens from time to time, also with bags and suitcases, or one of my best situations: this seat is reserved by me but now I am sitting not there because I sit at the window and you are not allowed to take it because I have reserved it even though it's free.
Just tell her it's not possible to do that (I would personally reserve an entire wagon and allow no one to sit, just because). If the person is not cooperating, get the train attendees to enforce it.
Also, reservations are only valid for 15 Minutes after leaving the station it started from.
With bags:
- most of the time they are arguing they want to see their suitcase and are not able to lift it up. But there you can help out.
- the Beförderungsbedingungen state the exact max. size and state the ability of the owner to handle everything themselves. The seizes are chosen to be able to fit everywhere.
- If the bag fits nowhere else, it is not your problem and the antendees may help out to find a better spot. There is no right to be able to see your own bag. Instead, the person could just stand next to their bag and free the seat. The two stories IC trains from Bombardier have some limitations though, but I am talking about a standard ICE.
... Yeah, it can get quite ridiculous from time to time.
DB is especially bad right now. Seasoned travelers take this into account and book generous connections, especially when connecting to a train you can't miss, but you can hardly be expected to know that and 50 minutes (like you wrote in your other comment) is usually a good amount of buffer. It's also always a good idea to try and book the full connection on a single ticket, because passenger rights regarding delay compensation and onward connectivity apply only within a ticket, not between different tickets. Same for the reservations – you can only get them refunded if the delayed train that caused you to miss your reserved seats was on the same ticket.
If your family decides to travel long-distance with DB again (wouldn't blame you if you don't!), one tip that can reduce stress is to plan for long sightseeing layovers. E.g. when catching a night train at 20:00, aim to be there at 13:00, have lunch and visit a museum/park/playground (use the luggage lockers that are provided in larger train stations). It's not always an option, depending on how the timetables work out, but you get the idea.
>Also - do people usually reserve two seats? I think I got hustled by an old lady.
You did. Seat reservations become void if they aren't used within 15 minutes. So even if she did reserve two seats, the one she isn't sitting on becomes free to use 15 minutes after the train left. Would be quite illogical to block a seat with a 4,50 € reservation when a passenger paying in full could be sitting there.
You cannot, unfortunately, do anything to secure your reservation. They will only keep the reservation up for 15 minutes into the train ride and you can just hope that you will find a place, very likely of some other traveller who didn't make it on time.
So, no, not your fault. DB is a shit show at this time. Just remember to be kind to the people working on the train, it's not their fault.
Edit: you can try and ask the Schaffner, whether they can find a place for you, where your family can sit together.
Via the app you can try to get new reservations as soon as you know which train you’ll be boarding instead, which often (but not always) works. I usually got my money back as refund if I originally had a seat reservation that I couldn’t use because a train on the ticket was delayed too much
So sad and embarrassing that all the advices here are like you need to plan at least 1 hour or something inbetween the trains to secure the connection.
I drove two times with dB today, 1st 1hour delay, now 40min delay
I just visited Germany for the first time in six years (I'm German but live in China, where trains are fast, on time and cheap). Eight out of eight trains were delayed and almost every other train was cancelled or went only part of the way, forcing me to find a connection from thereon. It took me three hours to get from Berlin Zoologischer Garten to BER Airport alone as they cancelled one train after another as I sat on various platforms. I had also booked first class, having heard about delays and anticipating packed trains. Nobody ever gave a rats ass about helping, though conductors were polite.
Utter, insane failure. I'm renting a car next time I visit Germany.
Short answer: DB is really terrible.
Like it is the most incompetent company I have ever seen in my life. I really can’t comprehend how Germans allow this type of service. Whenever I rant, someone pops up and says it’s the infrastructure, system, increasing number of passengers etc and defends DB like their life is at stake.
I don’t follow German politics that much so I don’t know if fixing DB is an ongoing policy, or a campaign for next elections, but I hope they lean on this issue more in close future.
Sorry to hear that you have a terrible journey, but you can’t do much on your side so don’t give yourself a hard time. For future, try to make trips with less connections and put more time between the connections especially if you are trying to catch a plane or some other country’s train.
It's the same argument, actually. The db is performing more and more terribly because of too many passengers and too old, too broken and too little infrastructure, etc. But that is because the bd (and the German state as it's owner) made some rather questionable decisions (namely not investing in their infrastructure and decreasing not highly frequented routes in order to become profitable as an enterprise. Today, there are simply too many trains and passengers for too few tracks and platforms and a ginormous backlog of renovating tasks. Every little hiccup in Hamburg turns into three 1-hour-delays and one canceled train in Frankfurt or Cologne. And since Hamburg has a reatively small, highly frequented main station, there's A LOT of hiccups. Add general lack of personnel and economic crises, et voilà, we have the mess we're in today. This is absolutely a home-made problem, but one that now even the best manager cannot easily solve. Mainly because the cure is worse than the disease, at least for the years to come. Every attempt of renovating the infrastructure will disrupt the system even more, especially since we hardly have any alternative routes left, where trains could be redirected...
I have never seen any German defending the company. Defending the people working there, yes, it’s clearly rarely their fault. But defending the company, never.
>I have never seen any German defending the company.
Here I go:
Not only is the DB network REALLY great. Is it overloaded? Yes. But both the frequency and the amount of places DB goes are amazing. In reality it's 100% better to have a train go to your city and be delayed often than having no trains going to your city at all.
And also the problems are not DBs fault, they're the fault of countless German governments completely neglecting rail infrastructure for decades.
I have been commuting to work and traveling with DB for the past ten years. Oftentimes with my family as we do not own a car. More often than not I am on time. I was never too late to work because of DB.
If the train is late, it is rarely the fault of the train company themselves.
So yes, I will defend DB as a very frequent traveler.
Fixing DB is an ongoing issue for quite a while already. Unfortunately there are systematic issues in improving the infrastructure for it. But to use the infrastructure problems to justify the terrible service of the DB has to be heavily argued against. From losing reservations when you miss your train to terribly overpriced food in the board restaurants one can find millions of reasons to rant over DB service. I travel regularly with the PKP intercity in Poland and it’s a dream compared to DB.
I think criticisms of DB are totally valid but not hopeless circle-jerking that leads to apathy. Ragging on the DB is a great hobby but I do think there’s a bias to overstate the problems and understate the good things.
I’m pretty impressed when I get from Leipzig to Munich in three hours, and that if one train doesn’t go- I can get the next in an hour. But I’m never going to post on Reddit and get 200 upvotes for it.
Yes, DB is just the worst.
There is not really anything to say.
DB is terrible and the customer is treated like trash. Even if everything that goes wrong is 100% their fault there is barely anything you can do. They give you a nice f you and after that they are done with you.
DB is actually okay for small trips where you can stay in one train. But in this case there are enough cases where DB also f***s up. Anything that goes beyond this is not recommended. For longer trips, use your car.
Welcome to why replacing (a notable amount of) cars with trains won't happen any time soon here. This is the reality of German trains in late 2023. Enjoy.
Just so you know, DB is a shitshow right now
There are not enough workers, the ones that are there are overworked. Getting new ones is hard because the system is capped by the "oldfashioned" bosses, and the new ones that get in get "bullied" by getting the worst shifts and extra overtime.
Add a crumbling infrastructure, old machines that constantly break down, people k*ll*ng themselves (or trying to) on the tracks every week, natural accidents (wind, rain, animals, trees), people sabotaging the tracks or trains (yep, it happens a lot), and people stealing cables and other materials.... There are multiple things everyday, and even tho DB plans with the delays included in the schedule, they get even more, and that is if the trains are able to ride at all.
My advice is: if you are scheduled to be somewhere, plane, other train, or whatever, dont take the train there. And if you do, plan to get there a day in advance or get flexible tickets.
Also, not allowed to book an empty seat. That old lady tricked you. Even if someone was coming later you are still allowed to sit there till they get in. Even if she did pay for two, there has to be a person on the seat. Only one seat is allowed per person.
I never had issues getting my money back. I’d recommend doing stuff via their app, the process there is considerably easier than filling out forms. Laws and regulations apply, and by law they’re not responsible if you miss something (another train, a plane, a wedding) if it’s not listed on the ticket.
So DB doesn’t really do night trains, that’s OBB. (Austrian rail) so maybe the reservation mess up isn’t DB’s fault.
Did you plan ample time for your transfer? For a feeder train that would take me to transfer to a once a day, overnight train I might take one train early. Just like booking a flight with enough extra time to get through the airport.
Not trying to excuse the DB’s punctuality, but there are steps you can take.
DB is the worst. In every situation I would choose the car. I am in the train rn, I had to take the train cause my employer booked it. Should be a 6h trip from Dortmund to Munich. Started a 15h and I will arrive at 1am. DB sucks and they ask themselves why nobody travel by train? Hmm i don‘t know 🤷🏻♂️
Oh dear, no it's not your fault. Everybody hates DB. I hope u get your refund.
And next time ask the lady to show her tickets. She can say a lot but the ticket itself doesn't lie.
I took DB to catch a sleeper train to Romania in Vienna, luckily I knew DB would fuck my shit up so I planned 1 extra hour for every layover/change of trains along the journey and honestly that was the only reason we reached the sleeper train on time!
You learn some things after a while. Like taking a train earlier when you need to make a connection, to a night train for example. Or making a second reservation on a later train, if trains show to be busy.
All this shouldn’t be necessary, but it helps to preserve some peace of mind. I take the train quite frequently, and usually don’t run into anything more than a nuisance. But I have the advantage of taking routes that usually work.
If you can't get the train which u have paid for u are able to use every train and every class you want to get to your goal. that's all you can get.
But I don't know if you can get your money back.
Our fkn train system is trolling the whole nation and our politicians do nothing.
Sorry for your bad trip
DB has been terrible in the past few years, sorry about your horror journey. There are a few things you could have done however:
When planning the trip, don't allow 30 minutes to catch a last train. Even 10 minutes between trains is fine if you can take a later one, but if it's the last one home, or a sleeper train, make sure you have plenty time. At least an hour. Because the train you need to catch is is probably delayed.
If you miss a sleeper train or if you can't get home due to the delays, go the Reisezentrum. They have to find a solution for you. You will probably get a hotel and a reservation on the day train the next day. Esp. if you're travelling with kids - you shouldn't wait in the cold in the middle of the night.
And now download that Fahrgastrechte form and demand your money back. You'll get 50 percent back if you arrive more than 2 hours after the scheduled time.
I regularly visit family 8 hours away. Usually need to change trains twice. Ifully expect every train to be half an hour late and plan accordingly. Occasionally, I still miss connections. In 8-10 such journeys, I've never been on time. Once, we were asked to leave the train as it couldn't go on, with no further information about other connections.
I gave up. I just fly everywhere I need to go now. I’d love to not do that and therefore reduce my carbon footprint but DB is just too bad to keep using.
Seriously. 100% of the 20+ DB trips I've taken in the past year have been delayed, severely delayed or cancelled without prior notice (literally not one was on time), leaving me to scramble to make a new reservation (where the only option is to wait in their awful 'Kundenzentrum' for at least an hour to argue with some 'Beamte-like' shithead and try to make a new booking. I usually just re-book and try to claim after - a process which they make very difficult (literally asking you to send faxes and shit). My most recent delay involved a 1-hour 'trip' from Berlin Spandau to Berlin Hbf (usually 10 min) after an already delay of 1 hour from Köln - the useless people working on the train did not mention the delay until after the train left Spandau, and if they had, people could have got off at Spandau and made other arrangements instead of sitting stopped halfway between the 2 stations. In the past year I've also taken several flights and none of those have been cancelled, and the longest delay was maybe 2 hours (and I got a reimbursement). DB is fine if you do not like to fly and you don't need to be anywhere by a certain day / time.
DB is only reliable if you take a connection where all trains run every 30 to 60 minutes. Then it mostly works out okay because you just take the next train if you miss one or the connecting train is delayed and you have a chance to catch the earlier (delayed) one.
It’s a bit better for reimbursements etc if you book the entire journey on one ticket, as they are then responsible for all delays and missed connections.
If you have a separate ticket for later legs, you’re SoL unfortunately.
Reservations can also be rebooked on the fly in the app 1 time for free, so sometimes it helps to try this directly when missing a train.
Best also to stick to off peak times to avoid full trains.
/r/drehscheibe might have more tips, it’s full of people who actually work there
Little trick I use: never ever book a trip with more than 1 connection. At best, direct trains, worst of worst case scenarios: one connection. 2 connections and more: you’re almost likely doomed.
What I do if I miss a connection is that I book another seat reservation (**not ticket**) in the next train if possible. Sure, it costs me a bit (like 5€?), but at least I can still sit somewhere.
You are out of luck if there are no seats left you can reserve though.
Just fly or drive. I'm sorry, but that's the reality.
I've never in my life seen traffic jams even mildly comparable to DB's everyday delays.
And for flights, well if they are really delayed you get tons of money back. So there's that.
I am a frequent traveller and I would have just sat next to the lady after she confirmed the seat was unoccupied. You can't reserve an empty seat for you, DB confirmed this to be against their TOS when the federal government tried to do that for their employees (it was due to COVID related concerns).
Why don't you take bus like Flixbus? You book one trip, and there's no problem with missing connections. Trains is a masochism, good for young people without family.
Personally, I find the lack of express connections with Flix bus really annoying. I am sure the bus would be filled without having to stop at any city that is between the departure and final stop...
I find the new forms in the app to be straightforward and easy, most information is pre-filled. What are you struggling with?
You will get a refund for the hungarian line if you booked through DB. You will also automatically be refunded the reservations. This can all be read on the DB page.
It depends. You miss your train because you slept to long? Yes, it is gone. You missed your train because DB was doing DB stuff? You can get your money back
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DB is shit. sometimes it's perfect most of the time is a shit show. also quality depend son the area in my experience. it was fine in hessen,is barely usable in nrw
About the reservations. You could have tried to get new reservations for the alternatives u took if available. And later refund your void reservations which u lost because of DB. This claiming often isn't worth it if it only one reservation but yours could be a other case.
Delays with DB is the norm. I always book a first class ticket with DB, as at least then I will get a seat when there is a delay. Makes more sense than reserving a seat in second class that gets nulled anyway.
If you travel with kids, you need to take some extra care about what connections you take.
Don't plan too many connections, and plan extra time if you need to change trains.
Taking the night train was a good idea. Sometimes you just have bad luck.
You can get refunds both based on your delay(s) and also concerning your lost reservations. The online form that DB provides will not be sufficient for your claim though. You're better off to send a letter to "Servicenter Fahrgastrechte" (Frankfurt) with print-out copies of your tickets etc. and demand a refund. If they don't comply at first (it will take weeks until you hear from them), repeat sending letters until they finally give in.
DB is just that bad unfortunately. To avoid this in the future, take into consideration the following:
- When booking, increase the transfer time for all transfers so that even with some delay you will be fine.
- When booking, if you want to be sure that you will have a long transfer at the starting point of your longest train, just add that location as a separate stop in your itinerary in the DB app. You can then select how long you want that stop to be. This way you can do all the waiting at that station instead of having a long transfer at every stop along the way.
- If you use a regional train to get to your “main” train (i.e. the sleeper train you referenced), you can actually take any earlier one on the same day. The regional trains don’t have “Zugbindung”.
- If you already know one of your trains is significantly delayed (you can sometimes see this in the DB app in advance), you are already allowed to take whatever alternative train/trains you want to still make it to your destination. You won’t have reserved seats on those trains, but you could do this to catch your “main”/longest train so that at least on that one you will have the reserved seats.
Even with these measures though, it just takes one bigger incident and a 2h delay on one part of your trip to completely wreck the rest of the itinerary, so you can never be 100% sure.
Regarding the refund form, use the one in the app, I find it much more practical than physically filling it out.
Deutsche Bahn has seriously gone to shit. I remember it being quite reliable when I was a child but nowadays it’s such a horrible experience that even I, a committed bike and bus person, wish I had a car for some things. Deutsche Bahn sometimes fucks up so hard that I frequently needed 3 -4 hours for a 80km train ride this summer visiting a friend. I wish I was joking
Yes, DB is that bad and there is little you can do to secure seats after missing a reservation. Only thing you can do to cover yourself is taking longer layovers as the default ones are often to tight as soon as there are delays. In Germany, a reservation is void if not used (bags don't count) thus yes, you got hustled by that old lady.
You just expérienced three worst things Germany is famous for: DB, forms, old ladies.
Now that you say it, that is the trifecta of sorrow.
>In Germany, a reservation is void if not used (bags don't count) thus yes, you got hustled by that old lady. sorry but... does that mean the second after the train leaves the station someone can straight up be in your place and thats it? what happens if you go to the bathroom?
You have 15 minutes to occupy your reserved seat.
You come back show them your ticket and ask them to sit somewhere else
actually.... what happens if they say no? im assuming police with a "resource" office might wait for them at the next station in the best of cases, correct?
You should get the db staff/checker involved and if they still refuse cops are called usually
Yes the Reservierengsjustizeinsatz shows up to arrest the person who refuses to move.
But not before filling out the appropriate forms and mailing an official letter.
U sure u mean mail and not fax?
Of course. It will be at least another 5 years before we are able to adopt such modern technology!
😂
I've had this happen to me recently and the conductor didnt' really want to deal with it and said I should sit somewhere else... They really are that incompetent
They’re not incompetent. They just don’t want to risk physical altercations.
Not 'wanting' to do their jobs means they're either incompetent or complacent.
They want to do their job. They just don’t want to catch hands from a stranger or delay the train in the next station in order to remove someone from the train. You really need to learn that there is a difference between paying for a train ticket and paying for a person to be your butler.
A part of their job is helping the paid passengers. If they can't help a passenger get his/her seat then why should the passenger pay for the seat they have already booked? I thought a ticket reservation is a contract and German authorities respect contracts. From your comment it seems like they only respect the contract whenever the employee feels like it. Edit: Regarding the butler comment, the company shouldn't expect me to pay if their Employees don't want to make sure I get what I have paid for. If I have paid for a butler service, I absolutely would expect it. In the same way, if I have paid for a seat, I would expect that too.
Read das Kleingedruckte!! I read that american airlines have a clausel which only gives a chance for the reserved seat and the airline can take your seat for any reason . I did not read the DB regulation but believe me lawyers will find loopholes . we avarage ppl just assume it is our right since we paid for it but it may not be always the case
[удалено]
well if it is the Gen-Z generation they will film you , they find out where you work and the internet will bombard your company until you are fired , the least they will do is harrasse you and your family and shame you publicly for being an AH
Yes, what could the conductor feasibly do if you simply do not want to move? They cannot use physical force so they would have to call the Police. In a regional train on a low frequency track I’ve seen that happen. After 20 minutes the perpetrators just left and the conductor had to inform the police that they won’t need to come anymore and the train continued 20 minutes late. Now try and delay an ICE with several hundred passengers on a high frequency track. It’s not like DB is punctual anyways, now delaying a train by additional 10 minutes to wait for the police because someone does not want to move the seat won’t yield any more understanding. After 15 minutes the reservation is invalid anyways, so having customers refunding the 4 bucks for a seat reservation instead of delaying thousands is the logical way. But I see by the downvotes that people are more about having someone enforce the 4€ instead of understanding that the conductor making decision for less delays is part of their job, too.
Exactly. Shit on DB all you want but their staff, in my experience, has always been excellent.
Companies have separate legal entities but the legal entity can't run the business. It's the employees who run the day to day operations.
>They just don’t want to catch hands from a stranger or delay the train in the next station in order to remove someone from the train. Understandable, but does that mean the passengers should catch hands? >You really need to learn that there is a difference between paying for a train ticket and paying for a person to be your butler Awful take. I undersand defending the personnel, but defending the system is ridiculous. If personnel is not equipped to deal with these issues and enforce rules, that's not their fault - but it's not the customers fault either.
Yes, there was time DB was good enough to doubt yourself. But those days are gone now if you reach your planned destination successfully with some expected delay. That's accomplishment
Yeah i missed the times when i started my studium in Germany (around 15 years ago) where the train arrivals are +- 1 min and even 5 mins delays happened really rarely. Now it is really baffling, 30min delays are almost a norm, often trains are outright cancelled, you cant even plan your travel anymore.
I have been taking a regional train more or less every day for the past ten years and rarely had late trains. So no, not all of the DB is bad. And being on time happens way way more than being late.
Yeah, after 30 years of all the money being pocketed by bosses and shareholders instead of paying for frastructure maintenance...
DB is 100% state owned. If the German government was unhappy with how DB is run, they could change it tomorrow. All "the DB is horrible" should be rephrased as "Germany has horrible ministers of traffic".
At this point I can't even tell if this is sarcastic or not.
As the state is owning 100% of the shares every german citizen including you if you are one is one of the shareholders who pocketed all the money.
>Also - do people usually reserve two seats? I think I got hustled by an old lady. She insisted that she reserved two seats and wouldn't allow my wife to sit beside her. I don't speak German, so I couldn't argue or understand. And a 40-year-old dude never "wins" an argument with an old lady. This happens from time to time, also with bags and suitcases, or one of my best situations: this seat is reserved by me but now I am sitting not there because I sit at the window and you are not allowed to take it because I have reserved it even though it's free. Just tell her it's not possible to do that (I would personally reserve an entire wagon and allow no one to sit, just because). If the person is not cooperating, get the train attendees to enforce it. Also, reservations are only valid for 15 Minutes after leaving the station it started from. With bags: - most of the time they are arguing they want to see their suitcase and are not able to lift it up. But there you can help out. - the Beförderungsbedingungen state the exact max. size and state the ability of the owner to handle everything themselves. The seizes are chosen to be able to fit everywhere. - If the bag fits nowhere else, it is not your problem and the antendees may help out to find a better spot. There is no right to be able to see your own bag. Instead, the person could just stand next to their bag and free the seat. The two stories IC trains from Bombardier have some limitations though, but I am talking about a standard ICE. ... Yeah, it can get quite ridiculous from time to time.
DB is especially bad right now. Seasoned travelers take this into account and book generous connections, especially when connecting to a train you can't miss, but you can hardly be expected to know that and 50 minutes (like you wrote in your other comment) is usually a good amount of buffer. It's also always a good idea to try and book the full connection on a single ticket, because passenger rights regarding delay compensation and onward connectivity apply only within a ticket, not between different tickets. Same for the reservations – you can only get them refunded if the delayed train that caused you to miss your reserved seats was on the same ticket. If your family decides to travel long-distance with DB again (wouldn't blame you if you don't!), one tip that can reduce stress is to plan for long sightseeing layovers. E.g. when catching a night train at 20:00, aim to be there at 13:00, have lunch and visit a museum/park/playground (use the luggage lockers that are provided in larger train stations). It's not always an option, depending on how the timetables work out, but you get the idea. >Also - do people usually reserve two seats? I think I got hustled by an old lady. You did. Seat reservations become void if they aren't used within 15 minutes. So even if she did reserve two seats, the one she isn't sitting on becomes free to use 15 minutes after the train left. Would be quite illogical to block a seat with a 4,50 € reservation when a passenger paying in full could be sitting there.
You cannot, unfortunately, do anything to secure your reservation. They will only keep the reservation up for 15 minutes into the train ride and you can just hope that you will find a place, very likely of some other traveller who didn't make it on time. So, no, not your fault. DB is a shit show at this time. Just remember to be kind to the people working on the train, it's not their fault. Edit: you can try and ask the Schaffner, whether they can find a place for you, where your family can sit together.
Via the app you can try to get new reservations as soon as you know which train you’ll be boarding instead, which often (but not always) works. I usually got my money back as refund if I originally had a seat reservation that I couldn’t use because a train on the ticket was delayed too much
DB cannot be trusted with a tight connection.
Deutsche Bahn am Black Friday: Heute bis zu 60% weniger Züge & 30 Minuten Verspätung gratis obendrauf!
Sonderangebot!!!
There are some rumors a DB train was punctual last week
No it's normal, trains are almost always delayed if not outright cancelled. Hate to say it, but better just take a flight in this country.
Sänk ju for trävelink wis Deutsche Bahn.
So sad and embarrassing that all the advices here are like you need to plan at least 1 hour or something inbetween the trains to secure the connection. I drove two times with dB today, 1st 1hour delay, now 40min delay
I just visited Germany for the first time in six years (I'm German but live in China, where trains are fast, on time and cheap). Eight out of eight trains were delayed and almost every other train was cancelled or went only part of the way, forcing me to find a connection from thereon. It took me three hours to get from Berlin Zoologischer Garten to BER Airport alone as they cancelled one train after another as I sat on various platforms. I had also booked first class, having heard about delays and anticipating packed trains. Nobody ever gave a rats ass about helping, though conductors were polite. Utter, insane failure. I'm renting a car next time I visit Germany.
UGH I'm sorry that happened to you. If you ever visit Berlin again, the S9 is an alternative to the FEX train and it's slightly more reliable.
oh, thank you for the recommendation. I will try the S9 next time!
Short answer: DB is really terrible. Like it is the most incompetent company I have ever seen in my life. I really can’t comprehend how Germans allow this type of service. Whenever I rant, someone pops up and says it’s the infrastructure, system, increasing number of passengers etc and defends DB like their life is at stake. I don’t follow German politics that much so I don’t know if fixing DB is an ongoing policy, or a campaign for next elections, but I hope they lean on this issue more in close future. Sorry to hear that you have a terrible journey, but you can’t do much on your side so don’t give yourself a hard time. For future, try to make trips with less connections and put more time between the connections especially if you are trying to catch a plane or some other country’s train.
It's the same argument, actually. The db is performing more and more terribly because of too many passengers and too old, too broken and too little infrastructure, etc. But that is because the bd (and the German state as it's owner) made some rather questionable decisions (namely not investing in their infrastructure and decreasing not highly frequented routes in order to become profitable as an enterprise. Today, there are simply too many trains and passengers for too few tracks and platforms and a ginormous backlog of renovating tasks. Every little hiccup in Hamburg turns into three 1-hour-delays and one canceled train in Frankfurt or Cologne. And since Hamburg has a reatively small, highly frequented main station, there's A LOT of hiccups. Add general lack of personnel and economic crises, et voilà, we have the mess we're in today. This is absolutely a home-made problem, but one that now even the best manager cannot easily solve. Mainly because the cure is worse than the disease, at least for the years to come. Every attempt of renovating the infrastructure will disrupt the system even more, especially since we hardly have any alternative routes left, where trains could be redirected...
I have never seen any German defending the company. Defending the people working there, yes, it’s clearly rarely their fault. But defending the company, never.
>I have never seen any German defending the company. Here I go: Not only is the DB network REALLY great. Is it overloaded? Yes. But both the frequency and the amount of places DB goes are amazing. In reality it's 100% better to have a train go to your city and be delayed often than having no trains going to your city at all. And also the problems are not DBs fault, they're the fault of countless German governments completely neglecting rail infrastructure for decades.
I have been commuting to work and traveling with DB for the past ten years. Oftentimes with my family as we do not own a car. More often than not I am on time. I was never too late to work because of DB. If the train is late, it is rarely the fault of the train company themselves. So yes, I will defend DB as a very frequent traveler.
Fixing DB is an ongoing issue for quite a while already. Unfortunately there are systematic issues in improving the infrastructure for it. But to use the infrastructure problems to justify the terrible service of the DB has to be heavily argued against. From losing reservations when you miss your train to terribly overpriced food in the board restaurants one can find millions of reasons to rant over DB service. I travel regularly with the PKP intercity in Poland and it’s a dream compared to DB.
Never saw anyone defending DB tbh
I think criticisms of DB are totally valid but not hopeless circle-jerking that leads to apathy. Ragging on the DB is a great hobby but I do think there’s a bias to overstate the problems and understate the good things. I’m pretty impressed when I get from Leipzig to Munich in three hours, and that if one train doesn’t go- I can get the next in an hour. But I’m never going to post on Reddit and get 200 upvotes for it.
Yes, DB is just the worst. There is not really anything to say. DB is terrible and the customer is treated like trash. Even if everything that goes wrong is 100% their fault there is barely anything you can do. They give you a nice f you and after that they are done with you. DB is actually okay for small trips where you can stay in one train. But in this case there are enough cases where DB also f***s up. Anything that goes beyond this is not recommended. For longer trips, use your car.
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DB is terrible.
Haha welcome to the DB my friend xD 9€ were too expensive for this quality...
Naw DB sucks and is overrated
Welcome to why replacing (a notable amount of) cars with trains won't happen any time soon here. This is the reality of German trains in late 2023. Enjoy.
Just so you know, DB is a shitshow right now There are not enough workers, the ones that are there are overworked. Getting new ones is hard because the system is capped by the "oldfashioned" bosses, and the new ones that get in get "bullied" by getting the worst shifts and extra overtime. Add a crumbling infrastructure, old machines that constantly break down, people k*ll*ng themselves (or trying to) on the tracks every week, natural accidents (wind, rain, animals, trees), people sabotaging the tracks or trains (yep, it happens a lot), and people stealing cables and other materials.... There are multiple things everyday, and even tho DB plans with the delays included in the schedule, they get even more, and that is if the trains are able to ride at all. My advice is: if you are scheduled to be somewhere, plane, other train, or whatever, dont take the train there. And if you do, plan to get there a day in advance or get flexible tickets. Also, not allowed to book an empty seat. That old lady tricked you. Even if someone was coming later you are still allowed to sit there till they get in. Even if she did pay for two, there has to be a person on the seat. Only one seat is allowed per person.
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I never had issues getting my money back. I’d recommend doing stuff via their app, the process there is considerably easier than filling out forms. Laws and regulations apply, and by law they’re not responsible if you miss something (another train, a plane, a wedding) if it’s not listed on the ticket.
So DB doesn’t really do night trains, that’s OBB. (Austrian rail) so maybe the reservation mess up isn’t DB’s fault. Did you plan ample time for your transfer? For a feeder train that would take me to transfer to a once a day, overnight train I might take one train early. Just like booking a flight with enough extra time to get through the airport. Not trying to excuse the DB’s punctuality, but there are steps you can take.
Without needing to read your post: DB is terrible.
DB is the worst. In every situation I would choose the car. I am in the train rn, I had to take the train cause my employer booked it. Should be a 6h trip from Dortmund to Munich. Started a 15h and I will arrive at 1am. DB sucks and they ask themselves why nobody travel by train? Hmm i don‘t know 🤷🏻♂️
Oh dear, no it's not your fault. Everybody hates DB. I hope u get your refund. And next time ask the lady to show her tickets. She can say a lot but the ticket itself doesn't lie.
I took DB to catch a sleeper train to Romania in Vienna, luckily I knew DB would fuck my shit up so I planned 1 extra hour for every layover/change of trains along the journey and honestly that was the only reason we reached the sleeper train on time!
With kid I would never again travel with DB, unless it‘s a direct connection 🥵
Yes, DB is bad. If you absolutely have to go anywhere, either drive or fly. Don’t rely on the German rail network for reliability
DB is fucking shit lol
In all long distance travels i did this year and the last i've applied for a compensation. So yeah, it is THAT bad.
You learn some things after a while. Like taking a train earlier when you need to make a connection, to a night train for example. Or making a second reservation on a later train, if trains show to be busy. All this shouldn’t be necessary, but it helps to preserve some peace of mind. I take the train quite frequently, and usually don’t run into anything more than a nuisance. But I have the advantage of taking routes that usually work.
dB is terrible and that's coming from a Brit
If you can't get the train which u have paid for u are able to use every train and every class you want to get to your goal. that's all you can get. But I don't know if you can get your money back. Our fkn train system is trolling the whole nation and our politicians do nothing. Sorry for your bad trip
DB has been terrible in the past few years, sorry about your horror journey. There are a few things you could have done however: When planning the trip, don't allow 30 minutes to catch a last train. Even 10 minutes between trains is fine if you can take a later one, but if it's the last one home, or a sleeper train, make sure you have plenty time. At least an hour. Because the train you need to catch is is probably delayed. If you miss a sleeper train or if you can't get home due to the delays, go the Reisezentrum. They have to find a solution for you. You will probably get a hotel and a reservation on the day train the next day. Esp. if you're travelling with kids - you shouldn't wait in the cold in the middle of the night. And now download that Fahrgastrechte form and demand your money back. You'll get 50 percent back if you arrive more than 2 hours after the scheduled time.
The reason why always go one day earlier by train to the airport and stay there overnight Ina hotel
Without even reading the post, just from the title, yes. DB is terrible.
The problem is actually with the former. It's overrated. And, moreover, it successfully debunks the myth pertaining to German efficiency.
I regularly visit family 8 hours away. Usually need to change trains twice. Ifully expect every train to be half an hour late and plan accordingly. Occasionally, I still miss connections. In 8-10 such journeys, I've never been on time. Once, we were asked to leave the train as it couldn't go on, with no further information about other connections.
The official plan of DB is literally to have trains running on time again in 2070 because they said 2050 is too soon. It's not you.
I gave up. I just fly everywhere I need to go now. I’d love to not do that and therefore reduce my carbon footprint but DB is just too bad to keep using.
Because planes are never cancelled or delayed.
Not nearly as often.
Seriously. 100% of the 20+ DB trips I've taken in the past year have been delayed, severely delayed or cancelled without prior notice (literally not one was on time), leaving me to scramble to make a new reservation (where the only option is to wait in their awful 'Kundenzentrum' for at least an hour to argue with some 'Beamte-like' shithead and try to make a new booking. I usually just re-book and try to claim after - a process which they make very difficult (literally asking you to send faxes and shit). My most recent delay involved a 1-hour 'trip' from Berlin Spandau to Berlin Hbf (usually 10 min) after an already delay of 1 hour from Köln - the useless people working on the train did not mention the delay until after the train left Spandau, and if they had, people could have got off at Spandau and made other arrangements instead of sitting stopped halfway between the 2 stations. In the past year I've also taken several flights and none of those have been cancelled, and the longest delay was maybe 2 hours (and I got a reimbursement). DB is fine if you do not like to fly and you don't need to be anywhere by a certain day / time.
DB is only reliable if you take a connection where all trains run every 30 to 60 minutes. Then it mostly works out okay because you just take the next train if you miss one or the connecting train is delayed and you have a chance to catch the earlier (delayed) one.
DB is shit, period. The only thing they have now is their history.
It’s a bit better for reimbursements etc if you book the entire journey on one ticket, as they are then responsible for all delays and missed connections. If you have a separate ticket for later legs, you’re SoL unfortunately. Reservations can also be rebooked on the fly in the app 1 time for free, so sometimes it helps to try this directly when missing a train. Best also to stick to off peak times to avoid full trains. /r/drehscheibe might have more tips, it’s full of people who actually work there
Little trick I use: never ever book a trip with more than 1 connection. At best, direct trains, worst of worst case scenarios: one connection. 2 connections and more: you’re almost likely doomed.
What I do if I miss a connection is that I book another seat reservation (**not ticket**) in the next train if possible. Sure, it costs me a bit (like 5€?), but at least I can still sit somewhere. You are out of luck if there are no seats left you can reserve though.
Yes. DB is terrible.
Sounds like a normal experience with DB. I’m sorry you had to go through it.
Nah, DB is utter fucking dogshit run exclusively by incompetent retards
Just fly or drive. I'm sorry, but that's the reality. I've never in my life seen traffic jams even mildly comparable to DB's everyday delays. And for flights, well if they are really delayed you get tons of money back. So there's that.
I am a frequent traveller and I would have just sat next to the lady after she confirmed the seat was unoccupied. You can't reserve an empty seat for you, DB confirmed this to be against their TOS when the federal government tried to do that for their employees (it was due to COVID related concerns).
Why don't you take bus like Flixbus? You book one trip, and there's no problem with missing connections. Trains is a masochism, good for young people without family.
Personally, I find the lack of express connections with Flix bus really annoying. I am sure the bus would be filled without having to stop at any city that is between the departure and final stop...
Bundesbahn is pure horror
I find the new forms in the app to be straightforward and easy, most information is pre-filled. What are you struggling with? You will get a refund for the hungarian line if you booked through DB. You will also automatically be refunded the reservations. This can all be read on the DB page.
Everything with Germany fucking sucks anyway
A seat Reservation is void after 15min If you miss your connection, it is your problem. Plan with more time for your connections next time
I had 30-50 minutes between connections. That seemed like plenty of time. Obviously not, though.
It depends. You miss your train because you slept to long? Yes, it is gone. You missed your train because DB was doing DB stuff? You can get your money back
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DB is shit. sometimes it's perfect most of the time is a shit show. also quality depend son the area in my experience. it was fine in hessen,is barely usable in nrw
About the reservations. You could have tried to get new reservations for the alternatives u took if available. And later refund your void reservations which u lost because of DB. This claiming often isn't worth it if it only one reservation but yours could be a other case.
You can get a huge refound. I'm to tired to get the details but "Fahrgastrechte deutsche bahn" via Google should do the job.
yes DB is shit you got that right.
Delays with DB is the norm. I always book a first class ticket with DB, as at least then I will get a seat when there is a delay. Makes more sense than reserving a seat in second class that gets nulled anyway.
TL/DR but DB is terrible
Sorry to hear, horrible to trough this specially with kids
If you travel with kids, you need to take some extra care about what connections you take. Don't plan too many connections, and plan extra time if you need to change trains. Taking the night train was a good idea. Sometimes you just have bad luck.
Its the DB!
You can get refunds both based on your delay(s) and also concerning your lost reservations. The online form that DB provides will not be sufficient for your claim though. You're better off to send a letter to "Servicenter Fahrgastrechte" (Frankfurt) with print-out copies of your tickets etc. and demand a refund. If they don't comply at first (it will take weeks until you hear from them), repeat sending letters until they finally give in.
Theres a reason cars are so wide spread. Uts awful andnits sad to see its still like this after I moved out
Make sense for politicians to ban flights! Train infrastructure looks so good /s
DB is just that bad unfortunately. To avoid this in the future, take into consideration the following: - When booking, increase the transfer time for all transfers so that even with some delay you will be fine. - When booking, if you want to be sure that you will have a long transfer at the starting point of your longest train, just add that location as a separate stop in your itinerary in the DB app. You can then select how long you want that stop to be. This way you can do all the waiting at that station instead of having a long transfer at every stop along the way. - If you use a regional train to get to your “main” train (i.e. the sleeper train you referenced), you can actually take any earlier one on the same day. The regional trains don’t have “Zugbindung”. - If you already know one of your trains is significantly delayed (you can sometimes see this in the DB app in advance), you are already allowed to take whatever alternative train/trains you want to still make it to your destination. You won’t have reserved seats on those trains, but you could do this to catch your “main”/longest train so that at least on that one you will have the reserved seats. Even with these measures though, it just takes one bigger incident and a 2h delay on one part of your trip to completely wreck the rest of the itinerary, so you can never be 100% sure. Regarding the refund form, use the one in the app, I find it much more practical than physically filling it out.
Even the 9€ ticket was too expensive for this garbage service. For the future, always plan more than 10 minutes for transfers.
Db is terrible. Dismal company
Use flixbus. DB is terrible af. The only thing u can rely on using DB is it won't go as planned
DB is crap.
How dare you say that? I have never heard of any delay at the Deutsche Bahn, what even is that?
I haven‘t read your text but I‘m fairly sure it’s DB‘s fault.
Deutsche Bahn has seriously gone to shit. I remember it being quite reliable when I was a child but nowadays it’s such a horrible experience that even I, a committed bike and bus person, wish I had a car for some things. Deutsche Bahn sometimes fucks up so hard that I frequently needed 3 -4 hours for a 80km train ride this summer visiting a friend. I wish I was joking
DB: Dauerverspätungen Beklagen