Glacier Express and Bernina Express seat reservation
A traveler is planning to take the Glacier Express on April 26, 2024, and the Bernina Express on April 27, 2024, and is looking for advice on how far in advance to buy the Swiss Travel Pass and seat reservations. They need to secure their seats as they sell out quickly, especially for their travel dates.
- Purchase seat reservations as soon as the booking window opens, which is 93 days in advance for the Glacier Express and up to 6 months for the Bernina Express.
- You can buy the Swiss Travel Pass at any time before your trip; it does not sell out.
- Check the respective websites for the latest availability and prices for seat reservations.
AI-generated summary-
Hi, I am taking the Glacier Express on 26 April 2024 and Bernina Express on 27 April 2024. I intend to buy Swiss Travel Pass. How far in advance must i buy the Swiss Travel Pass and also seat reservation on both Express? Thanks
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I already have my seat reservations for both of those trains and I am not going until September. They sell out very quickly.
You can buy the ticket on the day apparently, but I haven’t started thinking about that yet, the seat reservation is the important thing right now.
Thanks for your reply. I tried to book seat reservation on Glacier Express on 26 April 2024 from Zermatt to Chur, but the website prompted ” Travel date too far in the future. You can only book 93 days in advance.
How did you get your seat reservations for September? I am traveling in September but I can’t get them until 93 days in advance.
Perhaps DebH purchased Glacier Express Excellence Class reservations. They are available up to 1 year in advance. But it is 93 days for First and Second Class reservations.
As stated above, purchase the reservation as soon as the website will let you, as they do sell out fast. I calculated the midnight time on the 93rd day in Switzerland and purchased mine at that time from the east coast of the US. I believe it was 6pm east coast time. There were many seats already sold by the time I got mine.
For the Bernina Express it looks like you can purchase the seat reservations for April 27th NOW. And you probably should get them NOW. I think they allow purchase up to 6 months or longer in advance now. Maybe even a year. It used to be less.
For both routes, you can then purchase the corresponding ticket, rail pass, etc. up to anytime before boarding the train.
Hi TKM56,
You can purchase the Swiss Travel Pass anytime before the trip. This will never run out. You can purchase the Swiss Travel Pass online here: https://www.myswissalps.com/travel-ticket/swiss-travel-pass/#tickets
However the seats can sell out. For the Bernina Express, you can book your seats up to 6 months in advance I think. But for the Glacier Express, only up to 3 months in advance. For departures end of April, booking should be possible by this weekend. You can find more information in the following links:
- Bernina Express: https://www.myswissalps.com/activity/bernina-express/
- Glacier Express: https://www.myswissalps.com/activity/glacier-express/
Regards,
Anna
I purchased my seat reservations today for the Bernina Express for May 23. They only showed one car available for 1st class and the only seats available were with 4 seats together. We had wanted the ones with just the two seats together. I will buy my Swiss Travel Pass later so bought as guest. They adjust the price once you put in travelers and indicate you will have a Swiss Travel Pass.
A?na,
Do you know if once you make your seat reservations if you can change the seats by calling them? They did give a number on the website. My daughter and husband have not decided if they will go with us. IF they do and cannot get the seats next to us, then I might change ours.
MIggles
Yes, we did end up buying Excellence Class. They were a ridiculous price, but I had read so many comments about how people missed out at the 93 day mark we decided to push the boat out. This is our 40th Wedding Anniversary trip and everything had been booked around the Glacier and Bernina Expresses, so missing out would have been a major hassle.
Originally we were going to fly business class from Australia, but the price increases on airfares made that impossible. We decided to fly PE instead and put the money into the Excellence Class.
We also bought our tickets, just in regular first class, on the Bernina Express, also for September.
I think the six month rule on this has changed too, as I just checked with a dummy booking and could easily reserve seats in both 1st and 2nd class for late August.
Hi Miggles,
It’s best you contact whomever you purchased your seat reservation from and enquire. It could be, if there are seats readily available it may be possible to change seating and they may be a fee incurred. Generally I understand seat reservations can not be changed.
Good luck.
Kind regards,
Yolanda
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