Deutsche Bahn Reviews 

810
•
TrustScore 1 out of 5

1.1

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Review summary

Created with AI, based on recent reviews

Evaluating 48 reviews, most reviewers were let down by their experience overall. Travelers frequently complained about massive train delays, unexpected cancellations, and chaotic last-minute platform changes that completely disrupted their scheduled journeys. People experienced severe overcrowding and difficult conditions while trying to reach their destinations across the network. Some reviewers were not happy with the unhelpful staff who struggled to communicate effectively and showed a complete lack of care. Consumers also noted that tickets were massively overpriced despite the poor quality of service and broken amenities onboard trains. Additionally, passengers reported terrible customer support experiences when attempting to resolve ticketing issues or seek assistance.

What people talk about most

Service

Reviewers express profound dissatisfaction regarding the service, highlighting frequent train cancellations... See more

Staff

Customers consistently note negative experiences with staff, frequently describing employees as rude and... See more

Location

Customers had ambiguous experiences with location, noting significant delays during their travels between... See more

Price

People report negative experiences with price, noting that tickets are massively overpriced and costs have... See more

Customer service

Users describe negative interactions with customer service, highlighting unhelpful staff, long wait times,... See more

Reviews shaping this summary

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

I just wonder how a company like DB still operates? On what basis? Nothing works! Cancelled trains without prior notice, announcements and information only in German (majoriry of the times), employee... See more

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Decrepit and incompetently managed, just like the rest of the f*ing country; a bloated, inefficient, dogma-infested third world mess run by Clowns! Seriously, when I take Deutsche Bahn, I can ha... See more

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

I have been travelling to Germany, usually Berlin, for about 8 years. In the last year the quality and reliability of DB has collapsed. Almost every train between Berlin and Leipzig has experienced a... See more

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

The replacement bus service between Starnberg and Munich was an absolute shambles, chaos. Buses could not cope with the level of people you had coming off the trains and the bus travel between Starnbe... See more


Company details

  1. Train Ticket Agency
  2. also in
  3. Tour Operator

Information provided by various external sources

Deutsche Bahn AG is a German railway company.


Contact info

1.1

Bad

TrustScore 1 out of 5

810 reviews

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1.1

All reviews

(810)

132 reviews in the last 12 months

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Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Worst train service in Europe.

Worst train service in Europe.

Late multiple times and will cancel reservations without apology or refund. Station staff also have terrible attitudes. Ticket system is also a confusing mess.

If you do require travel with them, go second class as they don’t always honour first class tickets. Our first class tickets were canceled due to a replacement train and staff refused to help with compensation.

11 September 2022
Unprompted review
Rated 4 out of 5 stars

The four stars are for amazing staff

The four stars are for amazing staff, which is often very helpful and friendly.

Bahnhofs, except Leipzig are usually a shitshow full of weiros and sometimes it feels like you have to chain yourself to not get stolen.

For God sake, how is that even possible that in ICE, the flagship of German DB you get the worst warm beer for 5 EUR??? I don't except something really fancy, but Germany is known worldwide for its amazing beer culture and this is not a really good marketing for ya'all

1 September 2022
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

It is forbidden to use bad words here

It is forbidden to use bad words here, otherwise Deutsche Bahn deserves only f words. I have been living in Germany for almost 2 years. I have experienced more delay or cancelation than on-time situation in deutsche Bahn. It is really awful. I live in Marburg but I work in Gießen. I lost my job because of f Deutsche Bahn. Never trust Deutsche Bahn.

14 August 2022
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Today 11/08/2022 I was travelling to…

Today 11/08/2022 I was travelling to work early morning from Freilassing with RE train from Salzburg to Munich at 05:24. I had the 9 Euro Ticket for the month offer, offered by Bayern for July and August to travel. Long story short the lady conductor came, I showed her my electronic ticket on my phone and she demanded I showed her my passport. I do not know whether this is normal or is it because I am black. Most times the conductors are very rude to blacks and treat us differently, because I saw another man next to me had the same ticket and he was not asked for his Passport.

11 August 2022
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Worst service ever experience. Rude, unpolite and unacceptable service

Do not trust this company. The worst customer service ever found in a train company. If you don't speak German do not expect good service, they will treat you like a piece of s*it. Rude employees, unacceptable train management, overcrowded trains, and not a sense of security.

I was traveling from Amsterdam - Copenhagen, a trip of 9 hours and 3 trains that became 14 hours and 6 trains. My second train was delayed by 50 minutes (a delay that was planned by the company. The same train one hour later was also delayed 50 minutes...) so I lost my connection from Hamburg to Copenhagen. I got to Hamburg and went to the travel center, where they gave me an option: taking 4 regional trains all over the north of Germany. Trains that I did not know if they will actually make it on time for the next train. I asked the man at the information desk if I needed a reservation seat, and he rudely denied it. I asked him for other alternatives to evaluate the situation. He answered me: "You don't have more options, they are all booked. You take this or you take nothing". I asked him, with a calm voice, if I could talk with another person at the desk. He madly takes the paper with the route out of my hands, gives me a ticket to wait for the desk, and wished me good luck in an ironic way. I asked him to give me back the other route and he denies to do it. I was left without any option.

I got the help of another girl who was in the same situation as me, so we went for the 4 regional train route. We found overcrowded trains, people standing in the corridors for 2 hours with heavy luggage, and even old people sitting on the floor. As a result of the bad management of trains by Deutsche Bahn, the Danish railway system was affected by overcrowded trains, and having to provide an extra train in the middle of our train ride from Esbjerg to Copenhagen.

They don't have consideration for the security of the passengers, if there were an emergency in one of that trains there would have been a big catastrophe.
This is experience is not covered with just 50% of the ticket.

9 August 2022
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Stay away

After staying away from DB trains for over a decade I gave it another try recently. Big mistake. all of my last 20 trains have been delayed. ALL.OF.THEM. I have no idea how people can use DB for transportation.

24 July 2022
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Ticket payed but not received

Deutsche Bahn has taken the money from my account but has not given me the ticket. I have been trying to get in contact with them for 3 days and it has still not been solved. The ticket was bought via international-bahn.de, do not recommend, very unprofessional.

4 July 2022
Unprompted review
Rated 2 out of 5 stars

Bad service

My mother made the mistake of accidentally putting her name instead of mine on the ticket. Clearly our mistake. But taking my ID and my BahnCard and then handing it back with a receipt not saying a word is so incredibly rude. I am so very disappointed and will definitely make sure not to use DeutscheBahn anymore, because on top of everything like always there is a delay of nearly 20 minutes.

29 June 2022
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Be careful with trial BahnCards

Be careful with trial BahnCards.
Deutsche Bahn's terms and conditions are designed to make you pay for "service" you likely do not want. They will sell you a card that basically does nothing except giving you a discount for 3 months. They will also say that they will charge you more after the end of this trial period.

What they want you to miss is that according to their rules, you have to *actively* cancel that additional charge for a whole another year no later than 6 weeks before the end of your trial period. Pretty much halfway. Apparently, that is how long they need to cancel a simple discount. There will be no reminder emails, no "do you want it" questions, only your bill 2 weeks after the cancellation deadline, exactly when you can no longer do anything about it.

The best thing is that they do not even offer those discount cards for a period of less than 1 year, and if you want anything shorter than that, you have to get trial BahnCards, cancel them right away and get new ones when necessary. Funny thing is, it's only a couple EUR more expensive per year than a full one-year BahnCard.

DB gives zero thought about convenience of their customers and resorts to scam-like practices. They sell you one thing, then charge you for another because you didn't tell them they shouldn't. Don't like their terms? Well, you don't have agree to them, you can just pay 25% more for already overpriced tickets and trains that are always late.

Avoid them like plague whenever possible.

18 May 2022
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Terrible service

Terrible service. Expensive and there has not been a single time I got to my destination on time.

Never.

I wish I could use another company for traveling.

F.U. Deutsche Bahn!

21 January 2022
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

I would give -100 if I could

I would give -100 if I could. I am travelling with DB for four years now. I have wasted so much time of my life waiting on platforms and so much money over subscriptions that are very difficult to cancel. The trains are many times late or cancelled. On a route of 30 min frequency, I have waited 40 mins to an hour for the next train. The platform announces 2mins before the expected train arrival time that the train is 20 mins late. The Online purchase-related inquires are taken over the call with long waiting times. The subscriptions have long notice periods, automatic extensions of up to a year if you forget to cancel on time, very difficult to cancel. Leaving a subscription in between is highly expensive. The website is very badly designed for navigation, esp. for cancelling subscriptions or tickets. DB is the reason I want to travel in my own car instead of an eco-friendly public transport system. All my buttons are pushed after 4 years.

18 December 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

DB Train Nightmares: Why It's Time to Stop Riding with Them!

Unfortunately reviews do not matter since this is the only train company in Germany. But I am so pissed and I don't know what else can be done except all of us stop buying tickets from this company.

I travel for work once a month with DB and literally everything single time, I have to deal with delays or cancellations on their lines.

what can I say, I can't even wrap my head around how they manage to stay in business with such an abysmal track record.

And it's not just the service that's gone down the drain. The ticket prices are skyrocketing, while the quality of service hits rock bottom. If I forget to reserve a seat, I'm practically guaranteed to be left standing or, if I'm lucky, sitting on the floor. They pack passengers from multiple trains into one because of overbooking or train cancellations and they really don't care

18 December 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

I am so so so frustrated with DB

I am so so so frustrated with DB. I travel from Denmark to France and Belgium 6-10 times a year by train. And I can say without blinking that literally every single time I travelled this distance there is at least one significant delay in Germany; 40, 50 sometimes 70 minutes.

It’s frustrating because I cannot just use another train service. DB is making in very hard to choose train over airplane. They are, in my opinion, forcing people to choose airplane because the alternative is so unreliable.

5 December 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Terrible

Hello,
I have booked a ticket from Hamburg to Odense and somehow despite writing the passenger name on the ticket it was my name and I was booking the ticket for my mother Of course I couldn't cancel or return the ticket so I ended up paying twice the ticket fee just because I couldn't change the name on the ticket. We are in the 21st century and it is outrageous that a simple thing as changing a passenger's name is impossible. I am wondering how many people have ended up paying for a service that they will never receive. It is really outrageous.

28 November 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

They have a non existent costumer…

They have a non existent costumer support. I have sent them 4 emails concerning my cancelled booking because of the GDL Streik in September and i have never received a reply let gotten any money back.
This is absurd!

26 October 2021
Unprompted review
Rated 1 out of 5 stars

Non-existent customer service

I recently ordered a BahnCard for discounted travel with Deutsche Bahn. After my purchase I found out that I paid too much as they offer special discounts for students under the age of 26. In an attempt to switch to the student version of the BahnCard, I sent an email to their customer service. As of today I have been waiting 11 (!) days for a reply, even after having sent multiple reminders that I have not yet received a reply. After contacting one of their social media accounts, I was told that email inquires are processed chronologically and that I should just be patient. I have never ever experienced such a slow customer service..

26 September 2021
Unprompted review

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