I am a student from South Africa travelling to Germany in around a month and want to book my train tickets on the Deutsche Bahn website. Since I'm a bit hesitant to order tickets delivered by mail (postal strike and generally unreliable postal service in South Africa). Therefore the only other option is an online or Cellphone ticket.

However the Bahn only accepts Bahncards, CC, ec/Maestro or ID documents as identification. I don't have a CC, accepted ID or bahncard and for the EC/Maestro option the bank needs a registered address in Germany.

What can I use to as ID choice on the website to identify myself on German trains? My "debit" card functions as a credit card (i.e. I can make online purchases, name printed on front and CVV code at the back). Functionally I doubt DB will notice a difference when I use it as a payment method, but I'm hesitant to use it as my ID on the train as it does state on the card that it is only a debit card and not a credit card.

As I am also in a neighbouring country during my visit for which I used http://www.b-europe.com to book a ticket and they have not required such stringent requirements during the booking process (arguably both cities are not in Germany). They only required the name as displayed on my passport and I do have an European passport. However I checked, and I can theoretically book long distance trains within Germany and did not ask for more stringent requirements. Would this be an option to consider?