Interrail ticket vs. Swiss flex travelpass

We are two adults who are traveling to Switzerland on Wednesday.

We are planning to travel from Zurich to Aosta Valley, where we plan to stay for two to three days. From Aosta we travel to Chamonix, from Chamonix to Zermatt with a day trip Gornegrat. After staying in Zermatt for two/three days we travel to Locarno and finally back to Zürich.

What type of traintickets would you reccomend? Will we be just as well off with an intterrail ticket as a Swiss flexi travel pass? Or could we just as well bye one way tickets for every trip?

Thanks in advance.

Vibeke

Hi Vibeke, thanks for your post!

The Swiss part of your trip basically consists of 4 longer trips and perhaps a few cable car/cogwheel train trips (such as Gornergrat). A 4-day Swiss Travel Pass Flex Combi fits that plan: it includes 4 days of unlimited traveling, and discounts on trips during the non-travel days. The Swiss Half Fare Card is an alternative to consider. If you want to compare them price wise you can do the math as explained here.

An Interrail pass offers less benefits: no free traveling to Zermatt, and less cable cars are discounted. So be sure to check carefully what's included in Switzerland, France and Italy. There may be local passes for France and Italy, but I don't know about those. Regular train and bus tickets are usually not that expensive there, especially in Italy.

The two passes I suggested for Switzerland are cheaper if purchased online (see the linked pages and click "Price"). But I'm afraid it's too late now to purchase them that way. They're for sale in Zurich too.

I hope this helps a bit!

Hi Arno, thanks for the reply.

After writing the first post we have made new plans =). We realised we could skip Aosta and go strait from Zürich to Chamonix and experience similar things without the extra stop. From there to Zermatt, then to Interlaken and then to Zürich.

We thought about the flex 4-day pass and think that is the best option. However I have another question for you regarding these destinations. We do have trouble finding available trains, even though there's a list of differnet trains to choose from when we use SBBs searchengine. When choosing the best train and going further it appears that it is fully booked. Are we too late planning this? Is it better that we try at the train station when we get to Zürich.

Thank you! Vibeke

Hi Vibeke,

That makes things a lot easier, as Chamonix is covered in the Swiss Travel Pass Flex (local cable cars there are not). So now the pass definitely makes sense.

You don't need to book trains (see here). All you need is the pass. Write the date of your travel day on the pass, and board any train you like. So you're not too late. You're just too late to buy the pass online for a better price than in Zurich.