With sincere thanks to various DE, I have successfully arranged and finished a 2 weeks’ trip to Austria in second half of August. I would like to tell my experience and contribute to the forum so that potential visitors can arrange their trip to this beautiful country handily.
By past experience, I am used to reserve accommodation for my whole trip before take off. It saves me a lot of time looking for hotel room when arriving at a new place, especially when there might be special event being organized. However, it is simply my experience during this short trip and it may not please everyone reading this thread. I start with my experience in terms of transportation in this post.
In terms of traffic, the means of public transport are excellent. Bus, tram, ferry, train all arrive on schedule as posted. Despite sometimes, trains could be a few minutes late but it is acceptable bear in mind long distance and places that it covers! The worst delay that I experienced was when I travelled from Bad Ischl to Graz as the train was almost 10 minutes behind schedule. Moreover and since I was together with other locals and travelers in the same route, I was relaxed. Otherwise, I might be a bit worried.
I together with my family (3 in total) took Lufthansa arriving at Munich at around six o’clock in the morning on 14/08 (Friday). It was at Terminal 2 of Munich airport. (As I do not understand German, I was originally confused and believed that there were several airports in Munich but I was wrong!)
An easy and short walk to the train station, I tried to purchase train ticket to Innsbruck. I paid the full fare for three adults as Bayern ticket could only be used after 9 in the morning. However, I was frustrated as the machine was in German ONLY and without knowing what to do next. I spent few minutes trying to figure out how to work with the machine but in vain. (There is a DB counter in the airport terminal but not yet opened at 6 in the morning.) Luckily enough, an Austrian gentleman helped me out in managing tickets to Innsbruck via Munich Ost Station. It also seems to me that the machine only accepts credit card!
We were tired after the long haul flight from Asia and therefore we took the less scenic journey. Upon arrival at Innsbruck by around 9 o’clock, we stored our luggage in a big locker in the station (EUR 4.5 for one day). With special thanks to Robbi for advice on Vorteils Card and summer ticket for youngster, I purchased the card and summer ticket for my daughter of 15. The staff at the office was a bit surprised when a foreign visitor asked for this!! Robbi, thank you again..
In some small train station, it was not staffed. However, the ticket machine is very user friendly, with choice of different languages, including English of course. As I mentioned in other threads, the 1 plus ticket was renamed as Minimax. Only with helps from staff of the first hotel that I stayed in Hall in Tirol and after several phone calls to OBB office, clarification was obtained.
Another experience that I would like to share is ticket purchase. Since I had booked all hotel rooms for the journey (a fixed schedule) that I always purchased on-going tickets in advance, so that I could do it at ease. The limitation is on the date of travel only whilst I could choose the schedule that suited me most on that day.
In some big stations (Innsbruck, Linz, Graz, Vienna, Salzburg, etc.) the train was at the station, well before scheduled departure time, for passenger boarding. Therefore, I always arrived at the correct platform at least five to ten minutes earlier so that I could find my seats and had luggage stored comfortably. I learnt this experience whilst I went from Innsbruck to Linz.
In that occasion, I arrived at the station just a few minutes earlier before departure. The platform was already full of passengers. The second class coach that I boarded was super-crowded with some seats being reserved. I could not even make a turn inside and did not have time to choose another coach before the train moved on. (At that moment, I was wondering why the DE always mentioned that seat reservation is not required.) Soon afterwards, the advice from DE proved accurate. I went to other coaches looking for seats and eventually discovered one coach (divided into many compartments with six seaters) quite empty. Eventually I could travel comfortably! I could not understand why that happened. Possibly most of the passengers in that train were visitors to Austria and did not realize train travelling pattern in Austria? Again, thanks to the DE.
The last stop of my journey was Salzburg with on-going trip to Munich airport. Again, I purchased the Bayern ticket at the machine in advance. (It seems to me that not all DB machines sell Bayern ticket. Also, the DB machine did not have a choice of language, at least the one that I used. With active assistance offered by a local, my ticket problem was eventually solved.
On the date of my travel to Munich airport, I arrived at the train station 10 minutes before departure and boarded the train comfortably. The train was not too crowded and stopped at Munich Ost station (platform 6) which allowed me to change easily for another train heading towards the airport at platform 5.
I went to places that I am interested in by public transportation means. Connection between train station and hotel is always by bus. (I always reserved rooms close to bus stops.) It saved me a lot of time against driving as some tourist spots are in pedestrian zone and parking would be a huge problem. Overall speaking, the OBB ticket machines are very user friendly versus the ones of DB since I don’t understand any German.
Finally, I would like to thank again for advice received from you all so that I can travel in Austria, just like a local, with full confidence.
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Thanks for taking the time to write this comprehensive trip report. It is great to hear that (almost) everything was fine. What I can barely believe is that ticket machines of DB don%26#39;t offer an English version? As already mentioned in other threads, the minimax (formerly: 1-PLUS) is only a name for a group discount that has always been applied automatically. You could observe that at vending machines as well as on the ÖBB internet ticket website. But since a few weeks (since minimax was introduced?) ticket machines as well as the ÖBB website do not automatically apply it anymore. I recently observed that in Salzburg when I was %26quot;playing%26quot; with a vending machine while waiting for my train to Vienna. Now you must, as described by you in a different thread, explicitly select minimax to get the discount. That has never been the case before.
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I have just determined that there are two (very similarly structured) online ticket sites. One can be directly accessed in the online ticket section of oebb.at - the other site pops up if someone uses the timetable inquiry page and then clicks on %26#39;fare%26#39;. I will contact ÖBB on this!
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ÖBB has solved the problem with the missing minimax discount.
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