Welcome to our Community, jpmichel!

Using a subscription can be kind of tricky when travelling only for a few months. For this you will need a subscription and this can only be placed on a personal card. This card can be ordered with the subscription, or you can order a separate card and then order the subscription. However, this subscription cannot be purchased without a Dutch bank account and IBAN. 

Thankfully it is possible to rent two bikes on one card. So if you are able to purchase the subscription with a Dutch bank account, you will only need one card for both you and your spouse.

NS is obliged to accept any IBAN from any of the SEPA countries. And as far as I know, they do, but unfortunately not online, which makes ordering quite cumbersome.

Correct, the IBAN can be changed after through customer service, which is a good addition, but the subscription cannot be initially ordered without one on the website.

If that is still the case, then NS is breaking the law. This is exactly the sort of discrimination that SEPA legislation tries to prevent.

So if I understand well enough, can I  go directly to a NS office, make the suscription there,and order the card at the same time,  with my accourt number(which is not dutch)  and do I get my card right there?

And where are the NS Customer Offices ? In every train station ?

Thanks for your help. 

JP

OV-fiets can only be ordered online or through Customer Service. But with Customer Service you'd need a card that can hold the subscription already. You can order a card with OV-chipkaart.

On ov-chipkaart.nl, you can only order a personal chipcard to be delivered to a limited number of countries. France is not one of them. On top of that, when you choose a Dutch address, e.g. the address where you'll be staying, you cannot pay by credit card, only using iDeal, which is a proprietary system used by most Dutch banks.

You could however take a Revolut account (should be free of charge), which does support payment with iDeal. Then you still need an address for the card to be delivered to.

All this looks extremely complicated. It looks like visitors from other country can't use this. I think I must forget the Idea of using this system. Do you know another way to rent a bike in one city and leave it in other cities. Thanks and best regards.jp

I have never heard of one way rentals for bicycles in the Netherlands. Usually you have to return the bike to the place where you rented it.

Actually, that is also the case with OV-fiets (and regarding the posts of TS he has misunderstood that).

It's technically possible to return an OV-fiets to a different station, but doing that for an entire holiday would end up quite expensive as the surcharge for doing that is 10 euros each time.

If the plan is to rent the same OV-fiets for the duration of the holiday you would have to pay the €10 only once. On the other hand you would have to pay €5 per day extra after the first 72 hours. Renting the same OV-fiets for several weeks can get quite expensive that way too.

If you plan to use the same bike during the weeks of your stay in Holland you could perhaps think of buying a secondhand bike for a low price, and after the holiday find a bikeshop to sell it again. 

Almost all cities and many large towns will have some form of a bike sharing system in place (besides OV-Fiets). Most of them can be picked up anywhere throughout the city and dropped of at your location of choice. The downside however is that you are confined to the city limits, so cycling to a national park outside the city for example will not be possible.

Besides the suggestion that Momo has given you, you could also consider renting a bike for a monthly period. Swapfiets for example is one of the more well known companies in the Netherlands which offer this service (I know I'm not really allowed to post ads).

My plan was to start my trip in Amsterdam, no bike there, then rent a bike in Amsterdam and cycle to another place and leave there the bike I rented in Amsterdam. Then no bike in the 2nd place for one or two days. Then rent a bike to ride to another place and so on... The OV FIETS seemed a good solution for that..but after reading what has been writen ,it looks like I can't do it as a tourist... I will go to the NS office when I arrive in Amsterdam and ask them, but this looks complicated and not very clear... Thanks for your help.jp