What happens when even German efficiency breaks down...

You will recall my recent disappointment when travelling from Stuttgart to Zagreb on discovering that my booked first class seat had been replaced with a perfectly comfortable, but not first class, standard class one in the absence of an entire first class carriage.

And so, on 20 May, I complained...

Dear Sir/Madam,

I travelled from Stuttgart to Zagreb on train EC113/213 on 8 May.

Having booked a first class seat, I was disappointed to find, on boarding the train, that the first class carriage had been left off of the train, and that my reservation was in a second class carriage instead. I raised the matter with the conductor, who was rather unhelpful, merely writing a note on my ticket.

Given that the second class fare was €79.00, and I had been charged €109.00, it seems reasonable to request a refund of €30.00, and I look forward to your response indicating how this can be resolved.

For your convenience, I attach a scanned copy of my original ticket, complete with conductor's note. Please note that the original document has been filed in Brussels as part of an expense claim, and is required for audit purposes by the European Commission.

Yours faithfully, etc. etc.

Naturally, I received an immediate response, referring my complaint on to the appropriate team. On 28 May, I received the following reply;

Sehr geehrter Herr Valladares,

wir haben Ihren Auftrag bearbeitet und die entsprechenden Positionen Ihres Auftrags 3O4EUQ storniert. 

Der Betrag in Höhe von   54,00 EUR wird der zur Zahlung verwendeten Kreditkarte bzw. Ihrem PayPal-Konto gutgeschrieben. Bei Zahlung per Lastschrift weisen wir denBetrag zur Gutschrift an. Bitte beachten Sie, dass die Gutschrift im Falle weiterer Fahrkartenkäufe oder bestehendenForderungen der Bahn intern mit diesen Forderungen verrechnet wird.

Der Betrag setzt sich wie folgt zusammen:

Fahrkarten:
Wert der Fahrkarte/n:              109,00 EUR
davon erstattungsfähig              50,00 EUR
abzüglich genutzter Leistungen       0,00 EUR
abzüglich Erstattungsentgelt         0,00 EUR
Erstattungsbetrag Fahrkarten        50,00 EUR


Reservierungen:
Wert der Reservierungen:             4,00 EUR
davon erstattungsfähig               4,00 EUR
abzüglich genutzter Leistungen       0,00 EUR
abzüglich Erstattungsentgelt         0,00 EUR
Erstattungsbetrag Reservierungen     4,00 EUR

Summe Erstattungsbetrag             54,00 EUR


Das Entgelt für Sitzplatzreservierungen wird laut Tarifbestimmungen nicht erstattet. 

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Ihr Service-Team von bahn.de

Hmmm... as you can see, the response is in German. Luckily, there is someone with German language skills on Planet Bureaucrat, so I passed it to Ros, who explained that, as best she could make out, they would pay the compensation directly into my credit card account.

And sure enough, that very day, they transferred the sum of €54.00. Impressive, one might think. Even more so when you realise that I had only asked for €30.00.

So, well done Deutsche Bahn!