BahnCard 25 or BahnCard 50, which to choose?
If you travel by train in Germany a lot, you may be interested in getting a BahnCard. There are three kinds of BahnCards, 25, 50 and 100. With BahnCard 100, you can travel for free(except for special charges for very fast trains) in Germany. But the card itself is very expensive.
Most people will be more interested in BahnCard 25 or 50, which entitles the card holder 25% and 50% discount respectively. The DB Web site says if you spend more than 228 euros on train ticket a year, it’s more profitable to buy BahnCard 25, and if you spend more than 460 euros on train ticket a year, it’s more profitable to buy BahnCard 50. It seems like a matter of finding out how much you spend on train ticket.
But, as always, it is more complicated than that. When you book a ticket in advance, you can usually buy a discount ticket(from DB Web site or from the train station). You can get 50-75% discount easily through buying the ticket in advance. If you have BahnCard 25, you can get additional 25% discount. For example, by combining advance booking discount and BahnCard discount, I could buy a ticket for 22 euros that usually cost 120 euros. With BahnCard 50, only BahnCard discount is available. So, 120 euros ticket will cost 60 euros always.
If you really want to buy cheap train tickets, book in advance. If you travel a lot by train, combine advance booking discount with BahnCard 25. BahnCard 50 only makes sense if you travel a lot but do not want to bother with advance booking(there is a 15 euros charge if you cancel your discount ticket).
