Hi,
I tried to submit this via the form on the Refunds and Complaints section of the website but the form kept returning an error.
My family and I were travelling on 09.05.2025 from Wengen to Frankfurt Am Main on a ticket bought from Deutsche Bahn. The original ticket is attached which includes the itinerary of the ticket.
On 03.05.2025 DB emailed us saying that the timings of the trains had changed and that we could no longer make the required connection at Basel SBB and as a result the ticket was still valid but the restrictions of the ticket were no longer applicable. This email is also attached.
You can see that the email included the wording:
“Because of the scheduling change, your original ticket is now valid on any route to your original destination with any of DB’s long-distance (ICE, IC, EC) or regional (RE, RB, IRE, S-Bahn) trains. You can choose a later connection, and you can also travel earlier in the day on your original travel date.”
As you can see in the email, DB told us we needed to instead catch ICE278 from Basel to Frankfurt but that required getting to Basel nearly an hour earlier than our original itinerary. When we realised that ICE278 (the train DB were telling us to catch because our original train wasn’t available any more) started from Interlaken Ost, we we chose to travel earlier and catch ICE278 from Interlaken Ost on 09.05.2025. As this was also a service operated by DB it matches the wording of the email that I have copied above. As we were travelling with a baby and a pushchair we opted to catch this train as it avoided the need to change trains this seemed like the most sensible way to get to Frankfurt as result of our original train no longer operating.
However, as we approached Basel on ICE278, the SBB ticket inspector on the train said that our ticket was not valid on the train in Switzerland and insisted that we buy a new ticket. When we tried to show him the email from DB saying that the restrictions no longer applied and that DB themselves had told us to catch ICE278, he wouldn’t read the email and instead said we could either pay for a new ticket or he would call the police.
As we were making onwards connections all the way back to the UK we didn’t want to have to revise our travel plans again so reluctantly paid for the 4 new tickets from Interlaken Ost to Basel.
When we spoke to the DB Ticket Inspector after Basel on the train, they said that we were incorrectly charged for a new ticket but that there was nothing they could do as it was issued by SBB.
Were we in the wrong? Are we entitled to a refund, if so how do we go about processing that refund? If we were in the wrong, how do we avoid making the same error in the future?
