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Comment by johnnyfaehell | Hacker News Reader

Honestly, FlixBus aren't well known in Germany for being good. They are cheap, but you constantly see people complaining about them.

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You also see people constantly complaining about other modes of transportation.

I've ridden both Flixbus and ICE extensively, had good and bad experiences with both and would say that they are very comparable in most aspects, except travel time. If I would find myself in a position with less money again, I would switch back to Flixbus (though the gap when you have a Bahncard 50 isn't even that big on popular routes).

I wouldn't be surprised if they would lose significant business in Germany when the new Munich-Berlin ICE track is opened at the end of the year. 6hrs (ICE) vs. 8hrs (bus) will suddenly become 4hrs vs. 8hrs.

I wouldn't be surprised if they wouldn't lose much business at all. With Flixbus, people pay 22€ for a 7:15h bus ride from Munich to Berlin. With DB, people will have to pay 150€ for a 4h train ride from Munich to Berlin (without a Bahncard). This is not affordable for the typical customer of Flixbus.

That's why I said, "on popular routes" (I probably should have said "on busy days" instead). When the number of available seats runs low, the price quickly surges from 22€ to 48€ (or even higher). 48€ vs 75€ with Bahncard 50 is not a huge gap anymore. 150€ also is for "Flexpreis" which isn't really a 1:1 comparison.

Comparing both pricing models isn't really that straightforward, which is why I left it out of my initial comment.

You are right, the pricing models are hard to compare 1:1. However, most Flixbus' customers can't afford (or don't want to afford) a Bahncard 50 and are very price sensitive. I've been travelling with Flixbus throughout Europe and the crowd is typically either very young or comes from the low-income strata of society. Anecdote ain't data, but that's what I also hear from the folks working there. Also, it has cost DB €10 billion to build the new connection, so they'll have to recoup that investment. Imho and as mschuster91 indicated, they will mainly steal customers from airlines.

Who is gonna lose big is flight, on that route. 4h one-way is comparable to flight... 1h10m flight time, plus 1h getting from Munich city center to the airport, plus 1h of pre-boarding time plus another ~45min to get from Schönefeld or Tegel into Berlin plus the inevitable delays on public transport, and suddenly the train is a viable alternative.

Also, in a train you usually won't end up with damaged legs or other flight related issues and you don't need photo ID or be treated like you're a terrorist (patdowns/searching, in addition that your PIR records WILL end up at NSA HQ, no matter what), which is the reason why I do not fly.

> though the gap when you have a Bahncard 50 isn't even that big on popular routes

Also, as a Bahncard holder, you get limited-time offers all the time. Just this weekend, I made a 500 km trip with InterCity trains that only cost me 25€ in first class (down from 160€) because of a voucher DB sent me via snail-mail. Once every few months, I will similarly receive vouchers like "10€ off a ticket purchase within the next 6 weeks" or "2 people ride, 1 pays for your next ticket purchase".

Yea, but you don't just see an entire review page just filled with bad reviews.

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