Even More Deutschland Ticket Drama

How, where, and whether to buy the German 49-euro ticket

This post is an updated version of an article I wrote last spring during the rollout of the Deutschland ticket - Germany’s successor to the 9-euro ticket.

We’ve now all had the 49-euro ticket for about a year. For us, it is definitely worth it. We don’t own a car and public transit + biking or walking is our only way to get around.

My previous BVG subscription, which just covered Berlin transit zones A+B was 29 euros a month, and was set to increase to almost 60 euros. And I regularly need to travel into Zone C, which requires buying an add-on extension ticket each way. A monthly ticket covering all three zones would be more than 80 euros a month.

My daughter’s secondary school is in Zone C and she was not deemed eligible by BVG for the normal Schülerticket for Berlin students.

(We gave up trying to figure out why. Their rules state that students who attend school in Brandenburg can be covered on transit to school for the portion inside the city. But we applied twice and were never approved.)

Buying a monthly BVG subscription for her was 29-euros also, plus purchasing two extension tickets each day to cover Zone C. Each extension is around 2.50EUR, which covers a two-hour transit window.

My son does have the Schülerticket and uses it to get to school just fine. But he’s our rail fanatic and his primary past-time is traveling by trains and trams around Brandenburg. It seemed kind of cruel to get it for everyone else and not for him.

We also travel a lot as a family - and prefer to go by rail. So we definitely get our money’s worth. We can travel to Leipzig, for instance, and not have to worry about buying a local ticket for their buses or trams. The same is true for Potsdam, Cottbus, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Frankfurt, etc.

But, if you’re only traveling in Germany on vacation, I don’t know if signing up for a self-renewing ticket subscription covering (almost) all German local and regional transit is worth the hassle. Ditto if you live here and your local transit to work or school is covered another way - or if train or bus service in your area is infrequent or unreliable.

What is the Deutschland Ticket?

So, let me back up and cover the basics: the Deutschland ticket is a subscription that covers transit on almost all local and regional transit throughout Germany. Essentially, you can use it on anything except long-distance trains like Deutsche Bahn’s InterCity (IC), and InterCity Express (ICE) trains, and non-German long-distance providers, like FlixTrain and Flixbus.

I say “almost all” because one city has recently opted out of the program, and the ticket is no longer valid there. (More on that, below.)

You can sign up for it from a number of different providers, including Deutsche Bahn, most local transit agencies, and authorized online outlets.

Hint: This very useful Wiki linked on the r/Germany subReddit really will tell you most things you need to know about purchasing the Deutschland ticket.)

Buyer Beware

Here are some points that I don’t see adequately explained in most of the promotional materials.

• You have to order by the 20th of the month to get the Deutschland ticket for the following month. This is true no matter where you get it. I know several people who ordered from different outlets claiming that they would be able to use it in May, even if they ordered it May. But when they got the ticket, the validity date was listed as June 1. Our local transit agency, BVG, is very upfront about this on their website, which led me to think that this was a policy that was unique to them. But, as I later discovered, none of the vendors will sell you a mobile ticket (a ticket available on an app) that will be valid the same month you buy it.

• Online outlets that are authorized to offer the ticket may not have the staff or site infrastructure to provide appropriate customer support if you have an unusual situation or have a problem. (See our experience with Deutschelandticket.de, below. ) I highly recommend going with your local transit agency or Deutsche Bahn or a vendor who has a known track record.

• Ticket holders under the age of 18 cannot get a mobile (digital) ticket. They, or, as in our case, their parents, must go to a customer service center for a local transit company and authorize the subscription and get a chip card ticket. If we had known this ahead of time, it would have saved us a lot of time and stress and we would have had the 49-Euro tickets for our two kids a lot earlier.

• If you want to cancel the ticket subscription, you can do in the app where you bought the ticket or at a customer service center. However, please note that you have to cancel by the 10th of the current month in order to avoid being charged for the following month.

Our cautionary tale

We first tried to purchase the Deutschland ticket for our kids from the website Deutschlandticket.de. (Because my husband and I already had digital subscriptions with BVG, we just converted those to the Deutschland ticket. We needed all new subs for the kids.)

This provider offered the Deutschland ticket as a mobile ticket transmitted by email, and allowed us to set up separate accounts for each kid, but use our bank account for the subscription. We set up the SEPA authorization with no issues and the web interface indicated that their tickets would be available beginning in May.

What I did not realize – because it was never stated – was that we were supposed to respond to an automated email from TransDev (the company behind the Deutschlandticket.de website) within 24 hours to verify our email and activate the subscription.

I did not check our email until the next day, and saw both a confirmation email of our order and the earlier email asking to verify the address.

Because it had been longer than 24 hours since the verification email was sent, we got an error message when trying to ‘verify’ our email address. However, we also had a later email from TransDev indicating they had our order and listed an order number. So, we figured it was verified.

We could also log in to the website and see that they had our data and that the ticket was listed as “pre-ordered.”

So, we wait through May 1 and see that the tickets are not active, but still in process on the website and the app. I send an email to their customer service and receive an automated response that they were receiving a high number of inquiries and would respond as soon as possible.

The next week came and went and still no response. After searching online and seeing others with the same experience, I read down into the website FAQs and found that the status of “pre-ordered” (Vorbestellt) really indicated that they had not been able to verify our information and, thus, we had no active subscription with them at all.

We could, the website stated, send an email to customer service with the phrase ‘manual authorization’ in the subject line and ask that they again try to verify our email and start our subscription. Or we could try to register under a different email and start the process over.

Remember, they have already stored our IBAN information for processing the monthly debit. I sent an email about “manual authorization” and I got the same auto-response from their email system: They would get to my question as soon as possible.

Then, I tried to log on to the website, delete our account and cancel the subscription to make sure we would not be charged if we went to another agency for the ticket. But because we had no active subscription, we couldn’t cancel or delete our information.

(Update: About three weeks later, I finally got an email response from TransDev stating that they were canceling our order and deleting our financial information because we didn’t verify the first email. So, all is good there and they did not end up charging us at all.)

We then tried to go back to BVG’s app to order tickets for the kids. But, we discovered that neither they, nor Deutsche Bahn, will issue online subscriptions for the Deutschland ticket for passengers under 18. A legal guardian must go in person to a customer center to set up a re-curring SEPA debit.

Local agencies unhappy with cost

While the 49-euro ticket may be a great deal for travelers, it’s a big bust for the transit agencies. Both the federal and state governments in Germany have to subsidize the program in order for the agencies to remain financially viable.

The transit provider in the northern town of Stendahl in the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt has officially opted out of the program and the ticket is not valid on buses there.

According to a report from The Local Germany, questions about the program’s future prompted the small city’s decision.

It will still work on rail transport to, from and within the town, but people travelling on buses there will need to purchase an extra ticket from January 1st. This will include six buses in Stendal itself and 35 heading into and out of it on journeys to places like Seehausen, Osterburg, and Tangermünde.

Stendal is leaving the ticket deal due to questions over ongoing financial support from federal and state governments - which agreed to cover the costs in 2023 but haven't reached definitive plans on ongoing financing. It estimated that being part of the ticket would lead to an extra €40,000 in costs for Stendal in the first four months of 2024, and so the town council voted not to recognise the ticket within city limits.

That's led to concerns other local authorities - particularly ones in financial trouble like Stendal - may follow suit.

But the German governments recently agreed on a funding measure that will keep the program in place at least through May of this year. And, next month, university students will be able to get a Deutschland ticket for only 29 euros per month.

So, it seems that the Deutschlandticket in some form is here to stay, although I keep hearing that the price is about to increase.

I hope that my experience and advice will help you decide if the cost plus all the drama will be worth it.