That's simply not true. It worked for me with a spanish banking account, and I've used it several times already without anything being shipped to my home. I used the DB app.
You only need a bank account with an IBAN number (and an address).
There are transportation services that allow you to sign up, download the ticket, print the QR code and use just that, so you don’t even need to use some app for that. Make sure to cancel before the 10th of a month because it automatically extends for another month if you don‘t.
But in exchange I’d really like to know what you did for DB to show you a 400 ticket, I don’t get such a result even going first class with the most flexible ticket available and only using ICE.
The ticket is actually offered by multiple transport companies and organisations which have different forms of payment, but the coverage is the same. Some of them accept VISA also, for example the MVV (Münchner Verkehrs- und Tarifverbund).
So, first class, ICE, full flex ticket. Yeah, those will be slightly more expensive. You can then forget about the Deutschland Ticket, that’s not available for first class, nor with ICE (not even EC). The only thing it gives you is the flex option. Simply by taking 2nd class, you could already cut the price in half.
Bullshit. You can buy it via the Deutsche Bahn app without a German bank account. By the way, it is illegal to sell anything in Europe and discriminate on which EU country your bank account is from.
Try buying it through a local service. My brother just visited me here and he bought it through https://www.rheinbahn.de/ and it worked with his Mexican CC.
Thankfully some service providers noticed the awful convenience and are trying to proliferate themselves by offering a better service. For example mop.la let's you buy the ticket via credit/debit card, gives you a digital ticket and let's you pause or cancel the ticket a day before the next month. (I'm not affiliated with them)
IIRC I've payed it via Paypal (you need an account with the official national railway provider though, which kinda makes sense for a subscription service) and it was available instantly as a QR code
there are many different places selling this tickets all having their own payment systems and in turn some might have constraints others do not have for practical reasons
generally it's the 49€-ticked designed as a long term plan (through cancel-able monthly) focused on residents and the most common way to handle this in Germany (and most other EU states) is through SEPA Direct Debit Mandates which requires you to have a bank account compatible with it, which _pretty much any bank in the EU does_! (SEPA == Single Euro Payments Area)
The reason this doesn't work with a credit system is that many EU citizens do not have credit cards, but pretty much all have a bank account which is SEPA.
Similar many places selling chip card require an address, so that they can send you new revisions of the card, billing info if needed etc. and at least in Germany any citizen is required to have one official address so not really any relevant limitation for the target customer audience.
But nothing of this is required to be done, e.g. if you buy through an app payments might go through google pay or apple pay.
Generally don't expect to be able to pay with a US credit card in the EU, it often does work but there is absolutely not guarantee it will work and card payment not accepting credit cards is common (might change in the near future). I mean it's a bit strange to say this because not always being able to use your home countries payment cards aboard is pretty much normal for pretty much most of the world.
