Deutsche Bahn scraps cancellation fees amid heatwave

As the heatwave intensifies across Germany, Deutsche Bahn has offered passengers the option to cancel their journeys free of charge.

Passengers can cancel DB journeys for free due to heat

Deutsche Bahn has announced that passengers scheduled to travel during the second half of the week and into next week can cancel their train tickets for free due to the extreme heat.

“Those who cannot take their journey due to the extreme weather will get their money back,” the national rail company said in a press release.

The policy applies to tickets bought before June 23 for journeys scheduled until June 30. It applies to all ticket types, including Sparpreis and Supersparpreis tickets. Tickets can be cancelled and refunds claimed online or at an in-person ticket office.

“We urgently advise checking the official heat warnings when planning a journey,” Deutsche Bahn said, and that “anyone who can postpone their journey in these extreme weather conditions [should] make use of the special cancellation policy”.

Heat warning in place across Germany

As of 10.40am on June 25, an extreme heat warning remains in place for much of western Germany, including western Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia.

The German Weather Service (DWD) has issued a standard heat warning for much of the rest of the country, including Bavaria, Thuringia, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Berlin, Lower Saxony, Bremen and Hamburg.

Only along a thin sliver of Germany’s Baltic Sea coastline is there no heat warning in place. Temperatures are only expected to rise as the weekend begins, with highs of 41 degrees celsius forecast in Frankfurt, 40 degrees in Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden and Nuremberg, and 39 degrees in Stuttgart, Hanover, Saarbrücken and Cologne.