[Removed user]

14 September 2017 at 1:32:43 #813257

We (2 adults) will be in Switzerland in April 2018. We are travelling Geneva-Bern-Luzern-Wengen-Interlaken-Zermatt-Geneva. By my calculations it would be cheaper to buy a half fare pass and pay for individual train tickets (1st class) than to buy an 8 day rail pass. Am I correct?

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[Removed user]

14 September 2017 at 16:27:45 #869791

Hi Kazzad and welcome to MySwissAlps!

You could be right. 🙂

If you have compared and calculated all the trips you are taking by bus, train, boat, cable car etc and compared them it could be that the Swiss Half Fare Card is cheaper for you. It isn’t always the cheapest option but it depends on each person’s plans. For some people’s itinerary it could be better and for others it could be more expensive. I assume you are comparing 1st class point to point tickets to the 1st class Swiss Travel Pass?

Be sure to read through our page on how to choose the best rail pass here as well.

The Swiss Travel Pass is more convenient usually though, as you don’t have to buy tickets (for most trips) like you do on the Swiss Half Fare Card.

Lucas

[Removed user]

14 September 2017 at 22:28:54 #869792

We are only using the train for the 6 specified transfers and nothing else. I used the SBB site to calculate the cost of each train trip and along with the cost of the half fare pass it worked out over $200 per person cheaper – of course I may have done it completely wrong!

[Removed user]

14 September 2017 at 22:31:25 #869793

Is it easy enough to just buy the half fare pass at our first destination and then individual train tickets at each station?

[Removed user]

14 September 2017 at 23:44:27 #869794

I would recommend buying the Swiss Half Fare Card online and then you have it emailed to you to print at home. Then you just need to worry about buying the ticket at each station.

Lucas

[rockoyster]

15 September 2017 at 3:46:48 #869795

Hi kazzad,

You wrote “We are only using the train for the 6 specified transfers and nothing else.“

Just to be clear, you don’t plan to go on any funiculars, cog-wheel railways, buses, cable cars or lake cruises or visit any museums?

I would strongly encourage you to have a look at the 2nd Class Swiss Travel Pass as an alternative to the half-fare card. When we travelled earlier this year we found the fact that we could experience many of the above “for free” meant that we did much more than we would have done if we had had to fork out money at each step of the way. Also the freedom of not having to buy tickets is quite liberating.

2nd class travel on Swiss trains is more than acceptable and if there is some particular trip that you want to take 1st class because the train may be crowded then you can easily upgrade to 1st class just for that trip.

Have you read this http://www.myswissalps.com/fo rum/topic/swiss-travel-system-changes-in-2018