72625 posts
Hi Nachiket and welcome to MySwissAlps!
Yes, Viator sends you a voucher that needs to be exchanged at a rail station when you are in Switzerland.
Other companies, listed here, will email you the ticket itself – but not Viator, not yet anyway.
72625 posts
Thank you Lucas. Can I exchange the pass on any station in Switzerland? I will be reaching Basel SBB via TGV around 1.30 pm on a Tuesday. Any instructions on where to go on the train station?
Thank you!
8889 posts
Hello Deon,
Yes you can. See attached for location of SBB Ticket Office. It is on the right as you come down the escalators heading towards the main entrance to the station.
72625 posts
Thank you for posting this! Ive had the same question and have been unsuccessful getting an answer from Viator or sbb. Thanks for the question and reply 🙂
72625 posts
Thank you Rockoyster and Lucas for our help. My experience with Vitaor is similar to ksmith8144. The people from Viator are clueless about this and are still claiming that the voucher is the ticket and I can show that on the train directly without any exchange. If not for this site, I would have definitely ran into trouble on the train with authorities if I went as per what Viator said.
72625 posts
It can get tricky getting the right answer from companies as large a Viator who sell just about everything, everywhere. Happy to help! Perhaps it will change in the future.
72625 posts
I am back from my trip and would like to share my experience regarding this.
As per the info shared here and from Viator, I went to SBB office in Basel and turned out that they do not have any idea of what to do with the voucher Viator had sent me. No one had even heard the name of Viator before. The gentlemen at SBB office was extremely helpful and tried to search for me in their system using name, passport number, email, phone number etc but still could not find any information for my 8 days pass. On my request, he then called STC Switzerland Travel Center AG , which is listed as supplier on Viator voucher, and spoke with them in German. Not sure what conversation they had (as it was in German), but in the end STC emailed me an eticket for my travel pass. So in the end everything was good, but it was very stressful. I wasted a lot of time in this process and had to make adjustments to my itinerary for the day.
To avoid this exact situation, I had called Viator several times and asked them about the eticket when they claimed that their voucher is the ticket. All I can say is support from Viator is extremely irresponsible and misinformed about what they are selling. Had it not been for the helpful officer in SBB, I was about to lose 800 USD (passes for 2 of us) and a lot more of my precious time in Switzerland. My recommendation would be to buy the pass from the SBB station as it takes only a few minutes. In case someone has already bought the pass from Viator, call STC and get the eticket before you reach Switzerland.
Hope this helps.
72625 posts
THanks for the update Deon, I hadn’t heard of this issue before from other members.
The best and easiest option is the buy the Swiss Travel Pass online from one of the other retailers we list here: https://www.myswissalp s.com/swisstravelpass/ price
As they all email you the actual Swiss Travel Pass (same day) to print at home (no need to exchange vouchers). It works quite well.
72625 posts
Deon, thank you so much for posting your reply! I called the Swiss Travel Center listed on my Viator voucher and they were incredibly helpful and emailed me my pass within minutes (which Viator had NOT done..). Doing this while still in the States was far less stressful than trying to figure it out in Switzerland. If not for this forum we would have started our trip out quite confused:) Thank you!