How to use Deutsche Bahn’s De Connect tickets for train trips between Germany and London

Background

Deutsche Bahn used to sell tickets called London Spezial that offered incredible value train tickets from Germany to London, changing onto the Eurostar in Brussels. These tickets were discontinued in March 2020, officially due to a change of Eurostar’s IT systems, but more likely because they were sometimes so incredibly cheap it made no business sense to continue them! This tweet by @stejormur on 21 March 2022 informed me that a sort of replacement system has now been established by Deutsche Bahn. These tickets show in Deutsche Bahn’s system as “De Connect”, hence the title of this blog post.

How do you find these tickets?

Put a German station and London St Pancras into Deutsche Bahn’s International Bahn search. Note the worked example shows a single ticket.

This is the search:

It works only with ICE + Eurostar connections, like the first one shown here – and this saves you money compared to purchasing each leg separately. International Bahn shows a price for ICE + Thalys + Eurostar connections as well (2nd connection shown here), but these save you no money in comparison to booking each part separately:

The following screen shows how the fare is composed – note De Connect for the Eurostar leg:

Head over to the Eurostar website and you see a cheapest price for the 14:52 departure Brussels Midi to London is alone €69:

In this example, the whole Berlin-Brussels-London trip booked with DB is cheaper than Brussels-London booked with Eurostar.

Can you book return tickets using DB’s system?

Yes you can – DB allows this. But the money saved if you book a return looks to be less significant – because prices for return tickets on DB’s website are simply the addition of the cost of two singles, while Eurostar gives you cheaper prices if you book a return.

Here is a worked example, using the same outbound trains as the example above, and returning to Berlin a week later – 12 May – we’ll use these trains that are a bit more expensive than the outbound:

The combined price for the Eurostar legs only is hence €92,90 (€39 outbound, above, and €53,90 return).

If we book a return trip on Eurostar’s website… it suddenly offers us cheaper tickets even for the outbound leg! Just 44 Euro versus 69 Euro if we book a single, and the return is €49,50 – total €93,50:

So if you’re planning a return from London to Germany it might be worth looking at the prices on Eurostar’s site as well – it’s possible that the old system of making separate bookings could be cheaper for that still.

Help! Why am I getting an error that a ticket cannot be booked?

Error handling on Deutsche Bahn’s International Bahn site is horrible – an error page like this crops up quite regularly:

In the case of tickets to London this seems to mean that there are no tickets left for one of the trains you’re trying to book. Given a one way trip involves at least 2 trains, and a return trip at least 4, it might require a bit of digging to work out which train it is that is the one causing the error!

What if I need to change my plans and alter my booking?

There is a difference when it comes to the exchangeability of the ticket. Even the cheapest tickets on Eurostar’s site can be changed up until 7 days before travel for no fee:

However the cheapest tickets on DB’s site are non exchangeable, non-refundable:

Flexible tickets are available, but cost more.

Can I use just one portion of my ticket?

At the time of writing no one has tried this yet, but @stejormur was kind enough to tweet a screenshot of his ticket to me – separate PDFs are issued for the DB and Eurostar portions of the journey. That means were you to use the London-Brussels ticket and not the Brussels-Aachen portion (or vice versa), I can see no way anyone would be able to know.

If something goes wrong – will I get to my destination?

It could well be the case that the first train you take gets delayed, meaning you miss the connection onto your second train in Brussels. How this will be handled depends on the direction of travel.

For trips from Germany to London, and if your ICE to Brussels is delayed, meaning you miss your Eurostar, go immediately to the Eurostar desk inside the Eurostar terminal at Gare du Midi and ask to be re-booked onto the next available Eurostar. Explain the situation to the staff. In my experience Eurostar staff have all too much experience coping with passengers delayed on ICEs from Germany and – if there is capacity – will re-book you. You must under no circumstances book a new ticket – both DB and Eurostar are members of Railteam, and the Hop On Next Available Train rule applies. It is of course possible that the next train has no capacity, so you might have to wait for the one after that, but the chances you get stranded in Brussels are very, very low.

For trips from London to Germany it is a bit more complex. If your Eurostar is delayed, and you miss your connecting ICE to Germany, it is possible that the next train to Germany is a Thalys, not a ICE. Thalys is also a member of Railteam, but in my experience trying to get Thalys to simply let you hop on the next train is nowhere near as easy as with any other Railteam alliance companies. In this case go to the international ticket office at Bruxelles Midi and ask for the Railteam stamp on your ticket to allow you to take an onward Thalys to Germany. You might need to be a bit pushy to get it.

I would not advise it, but you could – if you are in a rush – simply try jumping on the Thalys and explaining to the train manager what happened, but without a Railteam stamp this can lead to arguments. The seats in the small vestibule directly above the wheels in the highest number carriage there is on the Thalys service (either carriage 8 or 18) are the seats most likely to not be reserved if you need to risk this.

If instead the next train departing for Germany is a later ICE, just get on, and go and find the train manager and explain what happened. The worst that can happen is that the train is full, and you do not get a seat and have to stand – something that is generally not allowed on Thalys or Eurostar. But you will get to your destination.

If you have missed the last train of the day from Brussels to your destination it might get complicated – see the next section on financial compensation.

If something goes wrong – will I be financially compensated?

In short: at the moment we do not know, but probably not.

Normally if a passenger had 1 ticket they would be entitled to 25% compensation in the case of a delay of over 60 minutes, and 50% if over 120 minutes, and up to 80 Euro to cover the cost of a hotel – if the last connecting train of the day had departed.

The heart of the matter is that DB is selling you two tickets in one transaction – one ticket from Germany to Brussels, and one ticket from Brussels to London, just that the De Connect portion can only be purchased together with another ticket, as @Lenny_du_Nord points out here.

However page 116 of this PDF (thanks Lenny again!) states:

Basically: each ticket corresponds with one set of rights.

However the screenshot @stejormur sent me shows CIV 1080 on the corner of the Eurostar ticket – CIV 1080 is the DB CIV number. So in any case any request for compensation would need to be directed to Deutsche Bahn, and not to Eurostar. Once someone has tested this I will update the blog post accordingly, but for the moment you need to assume you do not have rights to compensation for your whole trip, only for each leg separately.

This blog post keeps mentioning the Eurostar from Brussels. Can I route onto a Eurostar in Amsterdam or Paris instead?

No.

Routes like Osnabrück – Amsterdam – London, or Saarbrücken – Paris – London do not work. You have to get on the Eurostar in Brussels to make this work.

So that’s the best I can do for now! Do tell me how this worked out for you if you tried it, and I will update the blog post accordingly! And of course I take no legal responsibility here – if you follow this blog post and get stuck somewhere, do not blame me. You follow this at your own risk!

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