Booking Polish (PKP) tickets

[alex397]

I’m looking for recommendations of where the best place is to book Polish train tickets. It will be PKP trains as I’ll be travelling between Gdansk, Poznan and Wrocław at the end of October

I’ve tried using the PKP Intercity website (intercity.pl). When searching for the trains, it can’t show the prices of any of the journeys (saying prices are unavailable). Then when selecting a journey, something happens where I can’t go any further. There is no option to the book the journey. The website seems very glitchy, and no where near as easy to use as DB or Ceske Drahy.

The Man in Seat 61 also recommends polrail.com, but I’m not keen on booking through an agency. Does anyone have experience of this website?

I may try to see if it’s possible to book through DB. Or, if worst comes to the worst, I may just buy the tickets when I’m out there - is there a danger the trains may become fully booked?

Many thanks.

 

[StephenHunter]

Polrail is a good site - expensive, but they will deliver to your hotel.

Trains can become fully booked, yes.

 

[_toommm_]

I booked through PKP the night before for a journey from Kraków to Warsaw and back; out on the 'standard' train, and back on the more premium Pendolino service. There were a few services that were marked as prices unavailable, but I presume that was because they were sold out; as I wanted to book on the sleeper originally back from Warsaw but there were no seat reservations left on the service.

 

[306024]

You’re following me around. Last weekend I travelled Warsaw - Toruń - Bydgoszcz - Gdansk - Toruń - Wroclaw, all with tickets booked on the PKP website about two weeks beforehand, paid with a standard UK credit card, then emailed to me. I agree it can seem a bit glitchy, but if I couldn’t get what I wanted at first I came back a few days later.

Unfortunately there seems to be no way of finding out if you are either too soon for the end of October, in which case there’s hope, or the trains are already fully booked. The only train that was full and standing was Warsaw to Toruń Saturday lunchtime, which makes me suspect you can still buy a ticket after all the seats have been allocated.

Seat reservations were not shown on the trains, so you risk playing musical chairs if you haven’t got one. All my tickets came with seat reservations except for the 12.22 Warsaw to Toruń, which I guess was already fully reserved. All first class seats were taken (just half a coach as booked) luckily I found a seat no one else claimed in second class.

An added bonus for rail staff entitled to a FIP 50% discount in Poland is the PKP website allows you select that from the discount drop down menu. However that option wasn’t available for journies between Berlin and Poznan.

 

[Przemysław]

https://bilet.intercity.pl/login?lang=EN - you can buy tickets or reservations for long-distance trains

 

[ainsworth74]

Does anyone have experience of this website?

Polrail is a good site - expensive, but they will deliver to your hotel.

Another vote for Polrail, I used them a few years ago as I had a specific requirement for seat reservations, I wanted two seats face to face as my mum gets travel sick going backwards so having facing seats means we're guaranteed one of them is in the direction of travel! They sorted it with no drama and emailed me the e-tickets, I can't recall how much above the public rate I was charged but it wasn't dramatic but what I was very impressed by was that they actually refunded part of what I paid as when they bought the tickets they were able to take advantage of a special offer which reduced the price. They could very easily have just pocketed the difference and I'd have been none the wiser!

So if anyone does get stuck I'd suggest giving Polrail a try personally.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Another vote for Polrail, I used them a few years ago as I had a specific requirement for seat reservations, I wanted two seats face to face as my mum gets travel sick going backwards so having facing seats means we're guaranteed one of them is in the direction of travel! They sorted it with no drama and emailed me the e-tickets, I can't recall how much above the public rate I was charged but it wasn't dramatic but what I was very impressed by was that they actually refunded part of what I paid as when they bought the tickets they were able to take advantage of a special offer which reduced the price. They could very easily have just pocketed the difference and I'd have been none the wiser!

So if anyone does get stuck I'd suggest giving Polrail a try personally.

When I last used it you could do seat selection on the PKP site, it was pretty rudimentary, though, you had to look at the seating plan and enter a seat number, and it'd give you a yes/no, if a no then you try another one.

 

[ainsworth74]

When I last used it you could do seat selection on the PKP site, it was pretty rudimentary, though, you had to look at the seating plan and enter a seat number, and it'd give you a yes/no, if a no then you try another one.

This would have been 2018 but from memory I think one of the three journeys I was booking had a seat selector but two of them didn't perhaps because they were cross border DB/PKP and CD/PKP whilst the one that did was an internal PKP service. It was a while ago now but I do recall fiddling with a seat selector but not being able to sort it hence resorting to an agency. If it had just been me travelling I'd probably not have bothered with an agency but whilst my mum is up for an adventure, only if she's going forwards so decided the fee was worth it for an easier life

 

[Segedunum]

I use the KOLEO app and find it to be easy to use on the go. All eTickets and they show in the app as well as in a PDF attachment.

Seat-wise you could set preferences or ask for a specific seat if you're au-fait with the seating plans (Vagonweb is good for cross-referencing).

 

[riceuten]

I use the KOLEO app and find it to be easy to use on the go. All eTickets and they show in the app as well as in a PDF attachment.

Seat-wise you could set preferences or ask for a specific seat if you're au-fait with the seating plans (Vagonweb is good for cross-referencing).

Seconded for Koleo - very slick and almost instantaneous support when I had problems.

 

[class ep-09]

I’m looking for recommendations of where the best place is to book Polish train tickets. It will be PKP trains as I’ll be travelling between Gdansk, Poznan and Wrocław at the end of October

I’ve tried using the PKP Intercity website (intercity.pl). When searching for the trains, it can’t show the prices of any of the journeys (saying prices are unavailable). Then when selecting a journey, something happens where I can’t go any further. There is no option to the book the journey. The website seems very glitchy, and no where near as easy to use as DB or Ceske Drahy.

The Man in Seat 61 also recommends polrail.com, but I’m not keen on booking through an agency. Does anyone have experience of this website?

I may try to see if it’s possible to book through DB. Or, if worst comes to the worst, I may just buy the tickets when I’m out there - is there a danger the trains may become fully booked?

Many thanks.

On 1st of November a lot of Poles travel to visit their relatives graves on a day of “All Saints “.
Roads and trains will be full .

Work-wise it is equivalent of a Bank Holiday in the UK - a day off .

Looking at the calendar 1st is on Wednesday and I guess it will be VERY long weekend for many starting on Friday 27th and finishing on the 2nd / 3rd ( which is Friday !).

 

[F Great Eastern]

Seconded for Koleo - very slick and almost instantaneous support when I had problems.

Agreed, by far the best way, the PKP site is horrible.

 

[alex397]

Thank you all for the recommendations. I have not heard of Koleo, but I will have a look at that.

I have found a way to make the PKP website work, by using Safari on my phone. It seems to be a Google Chrome problem, as I tried the PKP website on my laptop and my work computer and on both I use Chrome. I could probably just use Safari to do it, but as a few of you have mentioned Koleo I will give that a try.

 

[Zamracene749]

Definitely Koleo. If that doesn't work try ePodroznik. Either of them will sell you tickets in advance, and up to a few minutes before you want to travel.