City Night Line and Inter-City

City Night Line: why is "die Deutsche Bahn" making it hard to book a bicycle ticket?

The 25th of June, after I've written a post about booking a ticket, I've noticed a small problem in the booking process. All of the Inter-City trains for the next day were already booked full. I could've traveled without a bike but taking it with me was the point of it all. After looking at every possible connection I could have taken, I've found the following website.

Translated: "Bicycles are carried free of charge, but you have to have an international bicycle ticket."

FREE but you have to buy a ticket from us.

The text refers to a 'Bahnschalter' (ticket counter). You have to buy a ticket at the ticket counter (costs a fee!), which also implies that you have to reserve this ticket within Germany. A tourist who stays for 2 weeks has to make a reservation for this service. When it is booked full, he/she has to find another way to travel long distances. The only option that comes to mind would be to rent a car.  

Edit: just found a long distance CNL reservation option {click this}. Call the number to reserve a spot on the train weeks beforehand. Booking on the internet is impossible at the moment though.


"0180 6 99 66 33 (20 ct/Call for German landline calls, Calls from other networks and mobiles may cost more)."

So basically you'd have to make a reservation per phone.


Now I'll show you everything you'd have to watch out for.



I have marked the link to Angebotsberatung. They have hidden it a bit. A direct link can be found here: http://www.bahn.de/p/view/angebot/sparpreis/spartickets.shtml. You can find ticket at half the price.



If you have looked up a connection, it is possible to check the box at "Fahrradmitnahme im Zug". Let's look for a connection.

Here you see the Sparangebote and the Normalpreis. Let's book the ticket by clicking "Verfügbarkeit prüfen".



After this step, it should've initiated the financial part. Instead, it showed me this:





So this page is telling me that I can buy this without a bicycle ticket.

The website is saying the following:

"Hinweis

Sehr gehrte Kundin, sehr geehrter Kunde,

leider ist für diese Fahrtmöglichkeit eine Buchung der Fahrradkarte im Internet nicht möglich. Sie können ihr Ticket jedoch ohne Fahrradkarte jetzt buchen.


"* Info on how to contact them *"

Im Internet können Sie Fahrradkarten unter den folgenden Voraussetzungen buchen:

Ihre ausgewählte Fahrt
- enthält ausschließlich Züge, die die Fahrradmitnahme erlauben,
- enthält einen Fernverkehrsanteil,
- enthält keinen Nachtreisezug,
- enthält ausschließlich innerdeutsche Strecken,
- beginnt frühestens einen Tag nach dem Buchungstag"

Making sense of the Bahn train search tool

I'd have to ask one silly question at first: Why did I check the box that asks me if I want to take my bike with me?

On the internet, checking a box that is telling me that I agree with something, mostly has huge effects, as it is making me agree with 5 papers of dense judicial jargon. On the Bahn website, it has no other function than to filter out the ICE and Thalys. Anyway, the page is telling me that I cannot book a CNL-ticket or international tickets online. That doesn't only mean that I can't book a direct connection from Germany to the Nederlands over the internet. It also means that booking a bicycle ticket over the internet for a German night train is impossible as well. My question to the Deutsche Bahn is the following: why isn't there a possibility of booking tickets for international - and night trains over the internet? It would make things a lot easier for tourists.

I was actually quite frustrated by this all, decided to take my train to Köln, and then to Mönchengladbach without buying a bicycle ticket.