Impossible to book Gotthard Panoramic Express
A traveler named kslewis is struggling to book tickets for the Gotthard Panoramic Express online using their Swiss Half Fare Card. They prefer to complete the booking online rather than dealing with ticket offices upon arrival, as they are traveling alone with luggage and want to save time.
- To book the Gotthard Panoramic Express, first reserve your train seat from Lugano to Flüelen online, then separately book your boat ticket from Flüelen to Lucerne using the advanced search option.
- If you have a Swiss Half Fare Card, consider purchasing a Saver Day Pass to save money on your trip, which can cover both the train and boat portions.
- Don’t worry too much about the timing; even if your train and boat are close together, the connection is designed to work smoothly, so you'll likely make it without issue.
AI-generated summary-
You still need to reserve on the Gotthard Panorama Express trip on top of having a ticket or rail pass so it is perfectly good that you did that already. 🙂
The Saver Day Pass acts as a 1 day rail pass which covers most routes in Switzerland – including the Gotthard Panorama Express route.
At the moment the Saver Day Pass for May 30 is 39chf (with the 1/2 fare card discount). The price will go up.
When buying the SDP select that you have a Swiss Half Fare Card and buy for (currently) 39chf.
When on the train and boat just show your Saver Day Pass (and the Swiss Half Fare Card to show you qualify for the lower purchase price) when they ask to see your ticket.
And also show the reservation when you are on the 09:23 train.
Hi kslewis,
You probably don’t need this anymore, but you wrote you weren’t sure my earlier advice included the boat: no it doesn’t, my recommendation to use https://www.trainline. eu/search/lugano/fluel en was for the train portion. The boat portion is not an issue: you can’t book seats; all you need is a ticket and if you don’t buy that in advance you can buy it on board.
Enjoy the ride! You sure have put a lot of preparation in it 🙂
Well there you go. I didn’t even know you could buy a ticket on board the boat. Does that apply to all Lake Lucerne boats? Is there any surcharge for buying on board? Just out of interest . . . .
Thanks guys- going to go with Lucas’s advice – hope the payment works today.
rockoyster I believe Lucas is saying once I have the the day saver pass and Swiss half card that covers the boat as well.
all I have to do then is work out how to upgrade to first class on the boat – think I have seen that link before
Let you know how I go in the interests of other travellers
Phew!
You can always buy a Class upgrade on board the steamer.
Hey Lucas
No surprise to find the system still does not work for payment!
I found the day saver pass for CHF39 as you said and input all the details extremely carefully and payment still rejected on 2 different credit cards, one of which I had used before and saved.
I tried twice, once as a guest and once logging in.
Seriously this is really hopeless. I think in the circumstances someone should call me and take my credit card details or better yet just email me a complimentary day pass to make up for countless wasted hours of my time.
You need to contact SBB.
Todays results-see screenshots
All I can say is your experience is not typical. But MySwissAlps is not SBB so if the problem is at the SBB end then you need to tell them about it and get them to fix it.
contacted them previously and no help
can you imagine ringing RTA here with this and getting anywhere?
refuse to make an international telephone call anyway
I understand MySwissAlps is not SBB but they are better and presumably can be more effective in passing on frustrated international customers feedback
Hi Rockoyster,
All boats I’ve used so far in Switzerland have a ticket office on board. No surcharge for buying there. I prefer buying in advance as you’re rarely the only one needing tickets, but it can certainly be done. I think the Lago Maggiore boats are an exception but they’re operated by an Italian company.
Hi kslewis,
I sure understand the frustration. I can’t be of much help here I’m afraid. I know SBB is aware of this and in most cases credit cards are rejected because they don’t have certain security features. I guess they expect more issues if they accept less security measures (fraud). Their tourist webshop does not suffer from this but unfortunately they do not sell class upgrades nor Saver Day Passes (yet). I’m not Swiss myself and rarely buy something from the domestic SBB site. Last time I did it worked fine however, with a debit or credit card with all the latest security. I usually buy from sites geared to tourists, or locally if that’s not an option. Saver Day Passes is the only product that is still only sold online and only by the domestic SBB site. So that’s unfortunate!
Hi Arno
I have cards with the latest security features.
I actually fluked it yesterday and was able to buy the day saver pass with one of them.
I then tried to buy just a single trip ticket on the same card in the same place and it failed yesterday and today.
So problem is with SBB and the third party payment service provider (Datatrans or something like that) it uses. They really ought to fix this urgently.
Hi all
After countless hours and dogged determination I finally bought all my tix and passes-despite SBB’s best efforts to thwart me
In the end Amex worked. Mastercard worked once and then repeatedly failed.
Reckon I am an expert now.
Thanks all-excited
Congratulations.
⭐️ For persistence.
Enjoy your trip and don’t forget to send us some photos when you get back. 😇
Great to hear it’s all sorted!
I’m sure I would have given up long ago and bought tickets in Switzerland somewhere – we will contact you from now on when someone has the same question 😉
Have a great trip!
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