Rail & Fly in Germany

[davidjohnson6]

Deutsche Bahn (German railway company) offers a ticket for 25 euros to go anywhere in Germany on almost any train when bought in combination with an international flight from a German airport. The ticket is valid from the day before a flight, until the day after a flight, and you're allowed to break your journey.

AirBerlin and GermanWings are both listed as valid airlines in the scheme. Lufthansa are not - presumably because they want to sell you a domestic flight as well. What puzzles me though, is why Easyjet and Ryanair are not registered airline partners in this scheme. My guess is that Deutsche Bahn pay some sort of commission to the airline - thus ancillary revenue. Is the commission just too small to be worth adding it to the website, or is there some other reason ?

The blurb for those who are curious (and I hope the mods won't mind my pasting the link!) is at:
Rail&Fly (http://www.bahn.de/international/view/en/prices/air_passangers/rail_fly.shtml)

[TJW]

Lufthansa does offer Rail&Fly as well. On their website, go to Information & Service >> The train to the plane

I suspect that it is the airlines that have to pay commission to Deutsche Bahn, since the tickets are cheaper than the regular train fare, and that this is the reason why Easyjet and Ryanair are not offering such tickets. (the tickets have to be bought from the airline or travel agency, not Deutsche Bahn)

[Pax Vobiscum]

In fact LH codeshare with DB, so some of their domestic 'flights' are actually trains. This was first tried in the 80s, unsuccessfully, and reinstated on the new high-speed lines in 2001 - AFAIK it's still active.

[5711N0205W]

In fact LH codeshare with DB, so some of their domestic 'flights' are actually trains.

Doing the same with KLM in a couple of weeks where a flight to Antwerp involves both a plane and a train, both with KL flight numbers.

[ExXB]

The Swiss Railroads offer the same deal - A roundtrip ticket from any airport to any point in Switzerland (using rail and intercity/village coaches) and back to the airport. Think SWISS offer this, but you can buy it direct from the railroad (http://www.sbb.ch).

[davidjohnson6]

TJW - I'm not sure I understand why the fact that the ticket has to be purchased from the airline implies that the airline is paying commission to the railway company. It would be much too difficult for Deutsche Bahn to check whether passenger X has a ticket on date Y from airport Z - if only because of passenger confidentiality rules. Only the airline can know if someone has purchased a plane ticket. Thus, if Deutsche Bahn wish to limit sales of this ticket type to genuine air passengers, either the passenger has to show some sort of printed out boarding card at a train station (as happens with trains to/from Prestwick) or the airline sells the rail ticket.

Separately, easyJet and Ryanir are more than happy to sell a rail tickets to/from places like Gatwick and Stansted at prices lower than the walk-up fare... (and I doubt MOL is doing this out of the kindness of his own heart to passengers, paying NationalExpress a commission in the process !) - so why not do the same thing in places like Berlin or Bremen as well ?

[TJW]

davidjohnson6 - I had assumed that the fact that the price for rail&fly tickets is lower than the regular fare meant that the tickets were subsidised, and I doubted that Deutsche Bahn would be the one paying commission to the airlines, as you stated in the original post.

I had a look at the Deutsche Bahn flyer for their partner programme (http://www.bahn.de/p/view/mdb/bahnintern/partnerprogramme/MDB59927-partnerbroschuere.pdf, in German). It doesn't state the conditions for rail&fly, but the general conditions for the similar RIT (Rail Inclusive Tours) programme, which allows tour operators to bundle rail tickets with their offerings. Basically, Deutsche Bahn charges only the special (VAT free) price for the tickets, and the tour operators sell them to their customers at a price that the tour operator can set at will. But, nobody pays anybody a commission for the tickets. Whether there's a commission involved in becoming a Deutsche Bahn affiliate in their partner programme, the flyer doesn't say.

[Anansis]

I've flown in and out of Germany with some of the airlines listed and I had no idea such a service existed! It will certainly feature in my travel plans in the future.

I can find plenty marketing of marketing spin on the airline websites but little info on how the service actually works. Is there an option to book your train ticket while you are booking your flight or do you book the train after you have sorted your flight out? Do you have to fly within a certain period e.g. 24 hours before or after your plane lands? Any information would be greatly appreciated!!