Inside Germany: The perks (and pains) of Deutsche Bahn's rewards program

If you’re a regular railway passenger in Germany, you’re probably aware of ‘Bahn Bonus’ – Deutsche Bahn’s incentive programme for frequent passengers. But unless you’ve spent a fair amount of time perusing the Bahn Bonus app, I'm willing to bet you probably aren’t aware of all of the perks you can access here. 

Some of them can honestly level-up your train travel experience in Germany, making it more fun and even a bit more affordable. That is, if you can make the program work for you.

Allow me to explain:

Lesser-known perks

I’m a pretty regular DB passenger myself, so in the course of the past few years I managed to collect a few thousand BahnBonus points. Then, when I finally opened the app to see what those points were worth, I found I had earned “silver” status.

The best perk of achieving silver status level, in my opinion, is the free drink coupons. I got eight digital coupons for free drinks redeemable at the on-board bistro bars on ICE trains.

These coupons work for every option on the menu, by the way.

Did you know you can order a gin and tonic on a DB train? 

Excited to test the value of my newfound coupons, I naturally ordered the most expensive drink on offer – a gin and tonic for €11, which consists of a 4cl bottle of Siegfried gin served with a separate bottle of tonic water and a glass. My mouth dropped open in disbelief when the server at the bar accepted my coupon without question and passed me each part of my deconstructed cocktail.

It’s a small perk for having spent thousands on (often delayed) trains around the country through the years, but as I sat sipping my fizzy drink watching the countryside fly by, I felt like I had unlocked a whole new level of the German experience.

READ ALSO: How to get compensation for delayed or cancelled trains in Germany

BahnBonus status level also comes with passes to enter the DB lounges, which are found at major train stations around the country. I’ve rarely used these myself, but the perk here is that there is free wifi, coffee and sometimes other snacks or drinks available – nice to have during a stopover at a major German train station.

Status-level customers are apparently also entitled to faster customer service support by telephone or in the ‘travel centre’ (Reisenzentrum) in stations, as well as discount offers from some partner companies (including on rental cars) and for some free minutes on DB’s share bikes.

You can find all your potential perks in the BahnBonus app by clicking on the ‘Statuslevel’ icon.

Not a perfect system

Arguably the biggest perk of the whole program, however, is the ability to use points to purchase coupons for travel, both in Germany or internationally. The only problem here is that, similar to DB's navigator app, you might run into some serious bugs in the process.

I had redeemed an international ticket for a trip to Bologna a couple years back, so I knew it was possible. But recently when I suggested to my partner that we cash in our points for a trip to northern Italy, I was confronted by a supremely frustrating ‘computer says no’ situation.

I went through the process in the app over and over again, but each time I got to the check-out page the app wanted money for the ticket.

Online I found some people complaining about this problem on Reddit. Some users suggested it was a translation problem – that the app doesn’t function properly if your browser is translating the German. So I tried turning off auto-translate and navigated the process in German, but that didn’t fix it. I tried on different browsers, and then I had my partner try on her devices.

I called customer service, but when I asked the representative there if we might speak in English she put me on hold indefinitely.

Determined to make it work, I even made a trip to my nearby Hauptbahnhof where a kind woman at the travel centre took my phone, went through the same process, and then told me that the free passes must be used up. There was a limited number of passes, she explained, and of course travel to Italy in the summer months would be a popular ticket.

Her explanation seemed plausible, but it also struck me as an easy explanation to get me out of the way.

At home, just before I pulled the trigger on paying for the tickets, my partner, who had just gotten a new work-issued laptop, said she’d try one last time… 

And then it worked! (Not just once, but twice – for her ticket and then for mine.)

While I am very excited to have finally cashed in some points for a free ride over the Alps, I am unfortunately left without an explanation as to why the BahnBonus system worked specifically then. 

If any readers out there have further insight into the issue, please do share it in the comments.

READ ALSO:

• Where Deutsche Bahn is adding international connections this summer
• Five cooler holiday destinations you can get to from Germany by train

The set-up 

If you travel on German trains with any degree of regularity, I would still recommend setting up a BahnBonus account. (Many of the other perks are far easier to redeem).

To do so you need a regular DB account – which you should already have if you’ve ever bought a ticket for a DB train online or in the app – and then you’ll need to register with the BahnBonus program separately. (Here or in the app.)

Once that’s done you can earn a ‘point’ for every euro you spend on DB travel tickets.