Swiss Half Fare Card

Hi agnes428, and welcome! The SBB 1 year Half Fare Card offers the same discounts as the 1 month variant. This 1 month variant would apply to your journey, as you plan to stay only 11 days. Seeing your travel plans, you may want to consider purchasing a 15 day Swiss Saver Pass though. This might be cheaper than a Swiss Half Fare Card, and it's probably more comfortable. You plan to make quite some long and expensive train journeys, which are for free with a Swiss Saver Pass. Moreover, you won't have to buy regular (discounted) train tickets for each trip, which is required with a Swiss Half Fare Card.

You don't have to make seat reservations for regular trips within Switzerland. Only the Glacier Express and Bernina Express require seat reservations, as you already mentioned. The same goes for international train journeys, so your trip from Bern to Paris has to be reserved well in advance. Please take a look at the seat reservation page for detailed information.

You'll definitely get to see lots of Switzerland's highlights with this itinerary. But it's a very tight schedule indeed, which doesn't leave much room for simply strolling around and enjoying the views. Whether this appeals to you, depends on your personal travel preferences. If you don't mind travelling a lot each day, it's a fine itinerary. The Swiss timetable allows you to look up travelling times. This will give you a better impression of what your stay in Switzerland will look like.

Hello agnes428. You can purchase your Swiss Saver Pass online through the Swiss Pass page. Please click 'Order your Swiss Saver Pass' here, select 'Click more countries' in the blue text below, and then click 'Singapore' from the list. This will get you to the right oder page.

Your Swiss Pass can also be used for the trips Lugano-Milano and Bern-Paris, but in both cases it will only be valid up the the Swiss-Italian and Swiss-French border station. For the trip from Lugano to Milano, Chiasso is the station up to which your Swiss Pass is valid. From there, you'll have to make use of a regular train ticket Chiasso-Milano. Prices can be found through the Swiss timetable. When travelling from Bern to Paris, the border station is either Basel or Geneva, depending on your train connection. So a regular ticket Basel-Paris or Geneva-Paris has to be bought too. You can arrange for this shortly before departure at a train station or order your tickets through the Swiss timetable.

It's hard to decide which part of your schedule could be missed out on. This depends on personal preferences, and we all may have different opinions. My personal advice would be to skip the Bellinzona-Tirano part of the journey, beautiful as it is though. Lucerne, Interlaken, St. Moritz, Zermatt, Montreux and Bern will show you many highlights of the Swiss Alps. Skipping this part of your itinerary will make your travel scheme more relaxed. It allows you to spend an extra day around Interlaken or St. Moritz, which has beautiful surroundings with stunning views as well. You could travel from Interlaken to St. Moritz via Zurich and Chur. Travel details can be found in the Swiss timetable. One more advice: when heading from Montreux to Bern, make sure to travel along the beautiful Golden Pass route via Gstaad, Zweisimmen and Spiez. This route will be displayed when entering 'Zweisimmen' as your via-station in the timetable.

Yes, my advice would still be to make use of a Swiss Saver Pass. You'll be travelling quite a lot over long distances, which means that these expensive train journeys will be covered by your Swiss Saver Pass. Exact calculations would have to prove whether the Swiss Saver Pass is indeed cheaper than the Swiss Half Fare Card, but it's certainly the most comfortable way of travelling for your itinerary.

If you want to visit both Pilatus and Rigi, this takes about one day. Either Pilatus or Rigi can be visited in half a day from Lucerne. The timetable will provide you with more information on travelling times. The Pilatus and Rigi timetables may also be of help.

If you want to travel from Engelberg to Interlaken over the Golden Pass route, you have to switch trains in Lucerne, where the Golden Pass line begins. It'll cross the Brünig Pass, Meiringen and lake Brienz. You can either get on board of a regular train, or enter a special Golden Pass Panoramic train, which provides larger seats and larger windows with better views. Such a train requires seat reservation though.

Hi parmo1,

Yes, the increase is quite substantial. Most tickets have gone up about 3%. Prices are determined by the Swiss railways. I'm not sure what's the reason for this particular increase. I do know that it's price has been CHF 99 for a long time. It's still a good deal, but of course the break even point will shift a little. I don't know about discounts for the 1 month Swiss Half Fare Card. You might want the ask the Swiss railways.

Depending on your exact travel plans, you might want to look into local discount cards. The Zurich Card is just one example. Many towns also issue free guest cards that can be used for free or discounted transportation in the immediate surroundings. The Geneva Transport Card is such an example.

Either way, enjoy your stay!

Hello gnjcampbell! When booking your Glacier Express seats through RailEurope, this can only be done about 60 days in advance. So if you try to order through this way, you can best wait a little and try again when booking for May 29 is possible. If you want to book earlier, you can follow the link 'Glacier Express' under the header 'Other ways to arrange for seat reservations' at our seat reservation page. This booking form of the Rhaetian Railways allows you to enter dates well past May 29.

You can purchase the 50% discounted tickets for the Swiss leg of the trip (Zermatt-Domodossola), at which the Swiss Half Fare Card is valid, in Zermatt before boarding the train. As long as your seat reservation is made in advance, the tickets themselves can be purchased right before the trip. For the Italian leg (Domodossola-Milano), full fare tickets must be purchased. These can probably be bought at Zermatt as well.

The Swiss timetable may also help you plan your trip.