Single trip Zermatt - Zurich airport, 3 people

Hello, my family - two adults and a 17 year old teen - are hiking the Haute Route and once finished, wish to travel by train from Zermatt to catch an 11:45 flight in Zurich. Please advise what type of pass or tickets we should purchase - do we need to make seat reservations? Buy our tickets in advance or buy a pass? Also, can you suggest what time to catch the train. Many thanks!

Hi MelFin, welcome to MySwissAlps!

Is this all traveling you will be doing in Switzerland? No other trains, buses or cable cars?

In any case you do not need to book seats: www.myswissalps.com/tr ain/reservations.

Hello Annika, We will likely try to ride a cable car while in Zermatt, and cable cars along the way when available, maybe a bus, along the way. Alas, after Zermatt, we leave Switzerland. Thanks!

Hi Melfin -

You'll have to catch an early train if you wish to be at the airport 2 hours before your fight.

See attached screen capture for a random day in July.

The quoted 63 CHF fare beside the journeys is for a holder of a half fare pass.. thus, it is a 50% discount for the 126 CHF fare with no pass.

I believe that a one month fare card costs 125 CHF. This may help:

www.myswissalps.com/tr ain/ticketspasses

Arno and Annika are the experts on travel passes. Probably, they can add more information.

It is possible but not certain that you could run up enough cable car tickets, etc. to make it worth while. I think it would be unlikely, but I really don't know how many you would use.

Slowpoke

Thanks Slowpoke. Yes, any input from Arno or Annika greatly appreciated. We will be taking a bus from Champex to Verbier, maybe the gondola from Verbier to Les Ruinettes, a bus to La Sage. If there's a gondola or cable car along the way, chances are, we'll take it!

Hi MelFin,

The trips Champex-Verbier, Verbier-Zermatt and Zermatt-Zurich Airport will amount to CHF 224,80 per person for full fare tickets. For just those rides, you'd be very close to the break-even point for a Swiss Half Fare Card (CHF 120 + CHF 112,40 for 50% discounted tickets). So in your case the extras such as the bus to La Sage and cable cars (especially those in the Zermatt area) will make the difference and cause the Swiss Half Fare Card to be the better option. Please find purchase options here. I'd recommend www.swissrailways.com/ en, as they provide print at home Swiss Half Fare Cards without any additional shipping or handling costs.

Thanks for the tips. I ordered my half fare card to be delivered online and hope it arrives in time!

Another question: Do you know of a service that will transfer our luggage from Chamonix to Zermatt while we hike? We won't need it during the hike, but will want to have it waiting for us in Zermatt when we complete the hike. I looked on the sbb.ch site and only find transfers within Switzerland or to Germany.

<<"Do you know of a service that will transfer our luggage from Chamonix to Zermatt while we hike?">>

How will you get to Chamonix?

Slowpoke

We are flying into Geneva and taking a transfer to Chamonix where we will stay for a few days.

<<"We are flying into Geneva">>

Not the best solution, but perhaps a partial one. Send some luggage onward from Geneva? Only useful if you were planning to stay in Switzerland after the end of your hike, however, and I don't think that you are planning that.

Perhaps your hotel in Chamonix would know of a private transfer service to get luggage back to Geneva and forward it to Zermatt or Zürich? When you ship luggage on the SBB, you do have to have a ticket to your destination or a General Abonnement or some similar evidence that you will actually travel, I recall. ;-(

This sounds like a common enough problem that someone must have worked out an answer.

Slowpoke