Rail Plus to increase European product rising Aug 1

[markis10]

Welcome to Rail Plus - Rail Plus Australia

According to Travel Daily they are putting up pricing August 1 to cover FX changes.

Travel Daily ‏@travel_daily 21m Rail Plus warns of price rises of up to 4% on European product due to downward trend of AUD$. Fares to increase on 01 Aug.

 

[Standby]

Airfares to follow,Aud down,fuel up = fares up

 

[Melburnian1]

Foreign exchange markets may not always be rational in the eyes of the community but there's a very good chance that the A$ will fall to US 75 cents or US 70 cents.

Our economic fundamentals are weakening, exacerbated by industrial relations changes at the Federal level that have swung too far in favour of employees, which makes it even harder for employers to put on full or part time staff.

It wasn't so many years ago that the A$ was at 55 cents to the US$.

Expect more of these FX 'adjustments' with petrol a candidate to rise in A$ terms (assuming that demand does not collapse) although we love our overseas travel so much that the A$ might need to fall to US 75 cents before there's much appreciable downward effect on demand for airline seats ex Oz. Yes, I know that travel is a discretionary spending item but many of us seem to have the overseas travel bug and for most of us it's not practical to depart by ship, so using an airline is almost mandatory.

 

[Fifa]

Rail Plus is such a ripoff!!

When travelling in Europe I always book using the country's own rail website.
As an example we are travelling from Salzburg, Austria to Buchs, Switzerland in September.
I purchased our tickets via OBB when the bookings opened and the price was 21.50 euro pp.
If I bought them today they would be 24.00 euro.
On the Rail Plus site they are AU$110 pp plus an additional $9 handling/booking fee:shock:. That's a huge markup.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Booking online direct is so easy these days, it is the only way to go.

No need for Eurail passes these days either.

 

[ComeFlyWithMe]

Italy also easy on Trenitalia website, it even has a (relatively recently functional) English option

I have saved hundreds by ditching Rail Europe and Rail Plus and the like.

 

[JessicaTam]

DB is pretty good for intra Europe rail travel as well.

 

[erkpod]

With the exception of the Eurostar leg, all of my Euro rail trips in 2011 were purchased on the day of travel.


I was in Amsterdam & woke up & decided to go on a train trip as the weather was ordinary on a couple of occasions. The first day, I went to Brussels & the other time, I went to Frankfurt. The forward trip was direct but there were a couple of connections on the way back. I love rail travel in Europe - a couple of crashes in the last week notwithstanding.

 

[JessicaTam]

With the exception of the Eurostar leg, all of my Euro rail trips in 2011 were purchased on the day of travel.


I was in Amsterdam & woke up & decided to go on a train trip as the weather was ordinary on a couple of occasions. The first day, I went to Brussels & the other time, I went to Frankfurt. The forward trip was direct but there were a couple of connections on the way back. I love rail travel in Europe - a couple of crashes in the last week notwithstanding.

It certainly puts our lame excuse for 'high speed rail' to shame.

 

[erkpod]

It certainly puts our lame excuse for 'high speed rail' to shame.

Add the fact that I went to Japan first at the start of the trip & it was not easy to ride a train in Australia when I got back (aside from the fact that I drive them!)