Deutsche Bahn Reviews 

Return ticket Berlin - Brussels. First leg 4 hours late. Return leg: I had to take a hotel in Köln to avoid having to wait from 1am to 3:30 am in Frankfurt. Terrible service, always late, no support. Unbelievable

We planned a circular rail holiday around Europe stopping at key locations ….. The DB rail part included a £1000 + sleeper from Augsburg to Venice …. this was cancelled by the rail company before we left home ! We rebooked with seated trains to Augsburg, overnight stop , then seated train to Venice ! We never reached Augsburg because our train from Brussels to Frankfurt was cancelled at Bonn station ….. we incurred a hotel bill at Bonn and an air flight to Venice the following morning ! Losing our following through connecting DB trains and an Ibis stoppover at Augsburg …. We got a refund for the Sleeper booking but not the replacement connecting trains and hotels ! In future I’ll take shorthaul flights !

This review features a low score due to the poor experience with the reimbursement service.
Background: I booked a train from Munich to Prague. Nine days before departure, DB e-mail me the train is cancelled, and I should choose another one. As all alternatives were not viable ones (I had to travel by bus) I asked to be reimbursed.

The issue: One month after, DB emails me asking me to “be patient a little longer”. Today, 42 days after my reimbursement request, I still have received no answer from DB. In their email, DB recommends to use the online reimbursement request on the customer account, rather than submitting the pdf form via email; of course I tried that first, but it did not work.

My recommendation: please ensure your process runs faster and more efficiently, and check your online site. DB are withholding money that doesn’t belong to them, it’s only fair to hand it back, with their apologies for the time wasted.

Their Bahncard is a total scam. 4 weeks earlier than renewal they send you an invoice without prior warning. AVOID!

Why even bother of booking a train and spots when you miss them because of these incompetent companies?! NEVER AGAIN!!! I rather go with the car

Do yourself a favor and book somewhere else.
Train delayed for 2 hours. Customer service hung up on me twice without even getting to describe my inquiry.

From Munich Airport to Marienplatz.
I paid €120 fo me and my husband as penalty, ridiculous! Not totally my fault because if you are first time to buy ticket from their machine, the option is adult and child and I press 2 adult not knowing that I bought tickets for 21 and below. That's their mechanism to make money from tourist. I feel like they are evil! I admit my mistake but €120 is just ridiculous!

I often buy tickets with Deutsche Bahn. One good thing is that the ticket is valid for 24 hours from the time you buy it, so if a train is late or gets cancelled, you can just take any other train going in the same direction.
But trains are often delayed, while ticket prices are dynamic and go up with demand - which is ridiculous. So if trains are delayed and you have not bought a ticket yet, the prices go through the roof. A ticket that normally costs €19 or €29 can jump to €58 or even €131 because of demand, like it did last week. That is just unfair.

Terrible heat, train was overbooked and personell was rude, when i asked to apologize for being rude to me zugchef me kicked out of the ICE train IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.

I objected to my BahnCard 25 auto-renewal the same day the invoice arrived (a month before the term started) and I never used the card. Deutsche Bahn refused, sent only form letters, then passed the disputed €62.90 to a collection agency that piled on ~€56 in fees. Turning a same-day, pre-term objection into a debt-collector case is predatory.

This is a rogue company. They are unable to provide a safe or decent service. Cancellations are the norm, trains run at random times, timetables are meaningless. In some cities such as Munich, whole sections of lines are closed, passengers are simply abandoned searching for replacement buses that are impossible to find, and are nowhere near the stations where DB has dumped you.

A shame, better to choose flixbus than deutsche trains, always late

Today I travel with you... My best railway company in the world💗 to Salzburg. In your app this should cost me around 105 Eur. But with Deutschland Ticket it is cheaper. Though I am using it during whole month. It is so amazing 😍. Of course I am writing this opinion from a train with very good WiFi w-lan internet 🛜. Greetings.

Tägliche Verspätungen oder Ausfälle zwischen Breisach am Rhein und Freiburg im Breisgau. Dank der Verbindung über Gottenheim läuft nie etwas reibungslos.

"The section from Freiburg(Breisgau) Hbf to Breisach is currently disrupted. The disruption will last until approx. 5 p.m. The reason is a technical fault on a train. Please expect a delay of up to 10 minutes. Please check your connection shortly before the train departs."

Really needs to do something about delays or cancellations. I love public transport but they're making it so hard!

Cancelling bahncard is awful. As with nearly everything the DB has to offer „not again“

Dont take to long distance train with DB, the delay will surpass your planned travel time

DB rebooked us on a different train connection when our Frankfurt-Berlin ICE train was delayed. We were meant to take the IC from Berlin to Krakow but we were delayed, ended up getting another connection through Warsaw which arrived 4 hours later. A bit annoying but glad that they were able to make it work.

I don’t really enjoy writing reviews like this, but after my recent experience with Deutsche Bahn, I felt like a 3-star rating was honestly the most accurate.

I use DB mainly for regional and intercity travel in Germany. When everything works, it’s actually quite good. Trains are clean, seats are comfortable, and the network itself is extensive. I like the idea of traveling by train instead of flying or driving, and when DB runs on time, it’s genuinely convenient.

Unfortunately, that “when” is doing a lot of work here.

On my last trip, my train was delayed — not a huge delay at first, maybe 15 minutes, so I didn’t think much of it. But then the delay kept changing. The app updated several times, the platform changed once, then changed back. At some point, there was an announcement in German only, and by the time I figured out what was happening, the train I was supposed to transfer to was already gone.

I stood there for a moment thinking, okay… now what?

The DB app showed alternative routes, but some of them no longer existed in reality, and others required sprinting across platforms with luggage, which just wasn’t realistic. I asked a staff member on the platform — he was polite, but clearly overwhelmed, and basically told me to “take the next train and talk to customer service.”

That next train arrived late too.

Eventually, I got where I was going, but much later than planned. I missed a scheduled appointment and had to explain — again — that the delay was due to Deutsche Bahn. I know delays happen, I really do. But what makes it frustrating is the lack of clear, consistent information when something goes wrong.

Refunds and compensation technically exist, but the process feels unnecessarily complicated. You have to submit forms, upload tickets, wait, and then sometimes follow up. It works eventually, but it doesn’t feel user-friendly.

So here’s where I land:
DB is not terrible. I still use it. I probably will continue to use it. But I no longer trust it in the way I want to trust a national railway system. I now add buffer time to every trip and lower my expectations.

I missed a train because of a unplanned delay and had to wait an hour at -5°C. I missed the check-in at a Hotel and photoshooting as a professional photographer. I took the train a day before and booked a Hotel and this is what happened. I hate the DB.