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Last night i booked a round trip from Berlin to cologne, when i tried confirming booking, it logged me out and next time i opened the website, it increased the prices, i booked it anyway, when i opened the website again after booking it decreased the prices to old price.

I feel cheated, is there a way to get the price difference from Deutsche Bahn?

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  • 1
    What was the price difference? If it was small, then it probably isn't worth pursuing.
    – jcklopp
    Jul 22 at 8:44
  • Are you sure you were watching the same itinerary? Maybe a different train or another route is involved in the lower price.
    – Bernhard Döbler
    Jul 22 at 9:57
  • No obvious way to force the issue but you can ask nicely (with some screenshots).
    – Relaxed
    Jul 22 at 12:56
  • Is the fare refundable?
    – jcaron
    Jul 22 at 15:08
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    A bit late, but nowadays all tickets can be cancelled for a full refund for 12 hours after the booking (even Sparpreis tickets), see bahn.de/service/buchung/stornierung or bahn.com/en/booking-information/exchanges-refunds for the details.
    – dunni
    Jul 23 at 13:24

1 Answer 1

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No.

What you describe is how dynamic fare pricing works and is nothing unusual. While you bought the tickets for a higher price, another customer likely was about to buy the last tickets in a cheaper fare category and had the tickets 'reserved' for them in their shopping basket, then perhaps changed their mind and didn't buy them. That will at a later point make the cheaper tickets available again, although they were not available when you bought your tickets.

If the price difference is significant and your tickets are cancellable for a fee, you might be able to save some money by bying new tickets and paying the cancellation fee for the old tickets.

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  • Quite possible OP’s own first attempt influenced the availability and thus the pricing, but that alone wouldn’t explain the price reverting back down after they booked (unless the booking was for multiple people and they checked the price just for a single passenger).
    – jcaron
    Jul 22 at 15:10
  • Both can be the cases. I was just curious as to why it reverted to old price just after the booking. But i will take care of this next time, probably waiting for a while if the price changes.
    – Harshit Saxena
    Jul 23 at 9:42
  • It's also possible, that the old price shown was a cached result and if you would have tried to book it, it would have failed as it did for you.
    – dunni
    Jul 23 at 13:23

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