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Introducing www.mavcsoport.hu
If you want to buy cheap online tickets for trains within Hungary and from Budapest to cities in neighbouring countries such as Vienna, Prague, Bratislava, Krakow, Warsaw, Zagreb, Ljubljana, Belgrade or Bucharest - the Hungarian Railways (MAV) website www.mavcsoport.hu is the place. No overseas ticketing agency has yet connected to MAV's ticketing system, so MAV's cheap fares are only available direct from MAV. They are not available from any other source, neither by phone nor online from any of the usual ticketing agencies.
MAV's booking website is at jegy.mav.hu
www.mavcsoport.hu sends you to jegy.mav.hu to buy tickets, here's a run-down of its features and quirks. Hopefully some of these quirks will eventually be ironed out, if you spot that something has been fixed, please let me know!
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When first launched, the system showed incorrect train times, it adjusted them to your own time zone.
The MAV website used to pick up your time zone from your computer's internal clock and convert train times into your own local time - not very helpful! So a train that left at 19:10 Hungarian time was incorrectly shown as leaving at 18:10 when viewed on my laptop here in the UK (1 hour behind Hungary), or 13:10 when viewed on a PC located in New York (6 hours behind Hungary).
They fixed this in March 2021, but the problem was back in June 2021, fixed again in August 2021, but I flag it up in case it comes back.
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However, it still uses your own time zone as desired departure time when setting up an enquiry.
If you're in California, 9h behind Hungary, and run an enquiry for trains on from 10:00 onwards, in the search results you'll see trains from 19:00 onwards. If you want to see trains from 10:00 onwards, you have to enter 01:00 as desired departure time.
If you're in Singapore, 7h ahead of Hungary, you'll see trains from 03:00 onwards. To see trains from 10:00 onwards, you need to enter 17:00 as desired departure time.
Get it? Just bear this in mind, and adjust desired departure time to see the trains and date you want. If you're in the USA/Canada, this glitch can easily push the search results into the following day, so pay attention, check what date you're looking at before you confirm and pay!
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Booking opens 3 months ahead on most routes
If you look further ahead than 3 months, on some routes you'll see no trains, but beware, on other routes you'll only see expensive full-flex standard fares as the cheap advance-purchase fares are only loaded 3 months ahead, sometime less than this.
Let that sink in: Suppose you're impatient to get every last 50-mile journey in your Grand European Tour booked and paid for way in advance. You try to book a Budapest-Vienna ticket 5 months ahead, you only see €54 tickets, you worry all the cheapies have already sold out (like, as if!) and pay a whopping €216 for your family of four. Had you simply waited, fares from €13 would have appeared 3 months before departure. Many such cheap fares remain available weeks or even days ahead. Don't be impatient!
Bookings from Poland and a few other routes may only open 60 days ahead.
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When paying, enter your country as Egyesült Királyság.
United Kingdom in Hungarian is Egyesült Királyság, so start typing Eg and select that. Germany = Németország, Italy = Olaszország, Netherlands = Hollandia. Many counties outside Europe aren't recognised, so here's the easy workaround:
Simply start typing Eg and select Egyesült Királyság regardless of your actual country of residence. It makes absolutely no difference to the booking or payment, heaven knows why they bother asking, just typical nonsense you have to do to get it to work.
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You get a print-at-home or show-on-app ticket
You can show your ticket in the MAV app on your phone (all routes) or (for some routes only) print it out, a big improvement over having to collect hard-copy tickets from a MAV ticket machine in Hungary.
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Sells inwards tickets TO Budapest, but only from certain countries
As tickets can be shown in the MAV app, it's possible to book 'inwards' tickets to Budapest, but only from certain countries. For example, you can now book from Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, Bucharest, Warsaw, Zagreb or Ljubljana to Budapest. But although it also shows inwards tickets available from Krakow to Budapest, when you click to book it the reservation always produces an error message - I hope they fix this, by all means try.
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Can usually book couchettes or sleepers
You can book couchettes & sleepers at least on some routes, although it might not work on all routes. Try it and see.
If you have any problems booking couchettes or sleepers on the MAV website, book the night trains between Budapest and Munich, Zurich or Berlin at www.thetrainline.com (easy to use, in €, Ł or $, overseas credit cards no problem, small booking fee) or the Austrian Railways website www.oebb.at (more fiddly, same prices, in €). Book night trains to or from Romania at the Romanian Railways site bileteinternationale.cfrcalatori.ro.
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Berlin: If you book to or from BERLIN it may book you to/from Berlin Sudkreuz, not Berlin Hbf (the main station). If you specifically select Berlin Hbf it finds no trains. However, I dare say you'd be fine booking to Berlin Sudkreuz and getting off at Berlin Hbf, it's the same price.
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Munich: For Munich you must type München Hbf even in the English version if the site.
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Bucharest: For Bucharest you must type Bucuresti even in the English version if the site.