1. Booking and Payment
Where can I book bus tickets?
You can buy bus tickets on this website only.
How can I pay?
At the moment we only accept payments made by credit card, Direct Transfer/ Sofortüberweisung.de (Klarna) and bank transfer. The payment deadline is 5 business days.
How can I retrieve my tickets?
Very simple: just logg into your User Area. There you can download your boarding passes as usual 1 week before the festival kicks off (sometimes even earlier). We solely work with e-tickets and do not send out tickets via mail or post.
Can I cancel/ alter my booking?
Yes you can log into the user area (see above) and there independently:
1) Cancel unpaid bookings.
2) Cancel paid bookings for a refund or voucher.
Unpaid tickets can be canceled at any time free of charge, as long as no payment order has been placed. This means: it can only be cancelled free of charge if we do not have to transfer anything back.
Paid tickets can be cancelled up to at least 4 weeks before departure for a fee per booking.
The fee is 10€ per cancellation, but may increase if we extend the cancellation period for you.
This fee applies per cancellation process, it does not matter how many tickets the respective booking contains or what the total amount is. Partial cancellations are not possible. Only complete bookings can be cancelled. Cancellations cannot be undone!
For bookings made within 90 days before departure, the refund is excluded, these can only be converted into a voucher.
An alternative to the "Cancellation against refund" is the "Cancellation against a voucher". An alternative to the "Cancellation against refund" is the "Cancellation against a voucher". This is possible for all bookings and up to 14 days before the event.
Rebookings are not possible. However, the booking can be converted into a voucher, which can then be redeemed for a new booking.
Can I cancel/alter only a part of my booking?
No. Partial cancellations are not possible. However, you have the option to cancel the entire booking and re-book again.
Why is my cancellation fee higher than €10?
Cancellation fees may increase if the actual cancellation deadline has ended and we still want to allow you to cancel.
How much luggage am I allowed to take with me?
Regular
- 1 suitcase or backpack
- 1 tent (groups are allowed to take a bigger tent instead)
- 1 small hand baggage
Not allowed: pavilions, bicycles, hand carts, barrows, beer boxes/ crates, other bulky items
XXL
- 2 suitcases or backpacks
- tent/ pavilion
- other stuff which is still reasonable
FAQ luggage
"I leave X (allowed) at home and want to take Y (not allowed) with me instead. Does this work out?"
No.
I want to take a bicycle or hand baggage with me because…. Does this work?
Well, only on rides with a XXL luggage option AND after it has been declared and confirmed.
Do I need to print my ticket?
While it is not a must to print your tickets, you definitely need to make sure that you can show a valid boarding pass to us. This gets quite tricky if you rely on the digital version on your phone, especially when it ran low on battery or it even broke during the festival. So, here’s a tiny secret: if you belong to the human beings who are pretty unlucky with their belongings, it cannot harm to have a printed boarding pass in your pocket as a little back-up.
Please note: You can't change anything in your booking after downloading the tickets!
I've already paid - why was my booking still cancelled?
Our system cannot assign your payment to your booking if
you have not entered your booking number
there was a mistake in the booking number
you have transferred too much/too little
you have transferred several transactions at once
you did not pay within the payment deadline
In these cases your bookings will be automatically cancelled after the payment deadline. Please contact us so that we can arrange a refund. Please note that there is also a handling fee and we can only refund the cost of the purchased tickets.
Do not transfer money quickly after your booking got cancelled. We can not bring back canceled bookings!
My payment failed - what should I do now?
Your booking remains valid for one hour after your first payment attempt and you can initiate a new payment request via your user area. After that, your booking will be cancelled automatically.
My booking is shown as paid - why can I still not cancel?
If you have paid via "Sofortüberweisung", it usually takes 1-3 working days for the payment to come through. Only then can you cancel. So it's best to wait a few more days and then try again. If you still have problems, please contact our support.
2. Bus rides and busses itself
Where is the meeting point?
The meeting points for all trips will be published on our website in time before your departure. They are almost always located directly in the respective cities, often at the ZOB, train station or other transport hubs and are usually super accessible by public transport.
What kind of busses are to be expected?
For all bus rides, but especially for those which take longer than 3 hours, we are eager to provide you with a bus that has a board toilet. In case we could not get hold of a bus that is equipped with a toilet on board we will make a toilet break after round about 1,5 hours.
In rare occasions it might be the case, that either the toilet on board is out of service or the bus doesn’t have any toilet at all. This then often is due to a defect or occurs because one bus broke and we needed to hire another bus urgently and couldn’t make sure that every demand is fulfilled.
But please also keep that if no toilet is to be found on board you cannot ask for a compensation automatically. Since this is not part of the contract of carriage to reimburse in such cases.
What happens if the bus is delayed/ cancelled?
Usually we plan ahead with a generous time buffer, which is why delays result in a rare case. But sadly, running a bus business also means being confronted with loads of external influences which can lead to delays eventually. Please bear with us if you are affected by a delay. We will give our best to keep an eye on the delayed bus and follow up with the bus driver and you. If there are many more bus rides scheduled that day, we might be lucky so that we can switch buses or solve the problem like this.
Sometimes it can even happen that a bus is getting canceled completely. If this was the case we are searching for a replacement immediately. Please not that we refrain from reimbursing you in such cases. There is no liability for connection rides or any other costs that occur on your end for taking another public transport option instead.
How long does the ride take?
Until the bus arrived at the destination. We do not provide information about the durance of the trip on purpose. Mainly because traffic is unpredictable. But there is a rule of thumb to estimate how long you’ll be on the road with us: 80 minutes ride per 100km. Toilet breaks and traffic jams are to be summed up.
How much luggage am I allowed to take with me?
Regular
1 suitcase or backpack
1 tent (groups are allowed to take a bigger tent instead)
1 small hand baggage
Sleeping mat and sleeping bag
Not allowed: pavilions, bicycles, hand carts, barrows, beer boxes/ crates, other bulky items
XXL
- 2 suitcases or backpacks
- tent
- other stuff which is still reasonable
FAQ luggage
"I leave X (allowed) at home and want to take Y (not allowed) with me instead. Does this work out?" No.
I want to take a collapsible cart or a pavilion with me, is that possible?
Well, only on rides with a XXL luggage option AND after it has been declared and confirmed.
As a general rule, the bus can only carry as much as it can fit and regular luggage (as described on our page) has priority. So in the worst case scenario, your "extraordinary" luggage will have to be left behind on site.
Can I transfer the tickets over to someone else?
Yes. But please make sure you transfer the tickets over to the new ticket owner before the festival kicks off. You can determine the new ticket owner in the user area.
Please note: after downloading the ticket, a name change is no longer possible!
What happens if I am late?
…then you can only hope for the bus to be delayed as well. Unfortunately we cannot ask our bus drivers to wait for you.
When do I need to show up at the meeting point?
15 minutes before departure. Please make sure to be there right on time because otherwise your seat will get newly allocated and we cannot guarantee that you can come with us.
Do I have to wear a mask during the ride/present a negative test result?
We have no legal basis to enforce a mask and test requirement for your ride and are therefore dependent on the solidarity of all passengers. We want to protect people from risk groups and strongly recommend to wear a mask during the ride and test yourself beforehand.
About project BASSLINER
How long does Bassliner already exist?
Since 2006 - which makes 14 years now.
Can I contribute?
We do not necessarily look for staff members, since we already have our core staff organizing all the festivals throughout the festival summer. But we are always looking for voluntaries who are helping us to check in buses and therefore also represent us in other cities than Berlin.
How does your organization work?
At the very beginning we have been organized as an association. But nowadays we are operating as a company (corporation).
What happens with profits?
The way we calculate does not allow us to make a huge profit anyways. Our margin is approx. 10-15% by full capacity and before deducting the costs. Most of the profits we make can be seen as a cross-subsidy for rides that were low on bookings. With the rest we are covering our costs which do not only occur during the festival season, but also throughout the whole year. Office, staff, server and so on. In some years we have donated our profits, since 2016 though we basically used every penny in order to optimize our project. Which basically is a benefit for our passengers.
Are you political?
Yes. For us the theme also had always been political. We want to serve with our bus rides for our direct network of alternatives, left-wing culture events. Based on our Know-How, we also help out on logistics for large scale events that have a progressively political context.
I want BASSLINER to sort out transport for my festival - What do I do?
Get in touch with us. The earlier the better- the more info the better. Even though we are more or less ‚booked‘ during the festival summer, we still will take time to check whether we can somehow integrate your festival as well. So, if your event/ festival sounds pleasant to us and to our passengers, we will say ‚yes‘.
All about the vouchers
Can I use my voucher more than once?
The voucher loses its value after being used once. So plan carefully how to redeem your voucher.
Is the voucher transferrable?
The voucher is bound to the email address for which the voucher was generated.
Can I have my voucher refunded for money?
No, we only refund vouchers resulting from 2020 festivals that have been cancelled because of Covid (only until July 1st 2023).
How long is my voucher valid?
The voucher is valid until the end of the year of the booked event from which the voucher results.
Can I cancel my booking that I paid for using my voucher?
Yes, in most cases you can cancel your booking. The voucher will then be valid again at its original value.