[Removed user]

10 February 2020 at 17:10:06 #825180

Hi – I have bought an 8-day Swiss Travel Pass for myself and family (self, wife, 2 kids). I have the PDF copy of the passes. I am traveling Zurich Airport to Zermatt on 10th April. Due to Easter weekend, I’m advised to reserve seats since there could be crowds. When I use SBB for reservation, I am charged €15. Zero for myself, €5 for my wife, son and daughter. (I realize reservation is not mandatory).

Can someone help me understand the rationale behind this fare?? Why €15? All of us have the Swiss Travel Pass but sbb is not allowing me to enter that information anywhere. The options on the site allow you to select several discount options (Half Fare, GA, …. ) but doesn’t talk about “Swiss Travel Pass” in any option. Appreciate any insight or help.

Thanks for your help.

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[Arno]

10 February 2020 at 17:20:06 #929938

Hi Mogambo,

Welcome to MySwissAlps! You should be charged CHF 5 per seat, not € 5. I’m not sure why your reservation would be free, but I saw the same thing when I tried to book for 4 passengers: CHF 15 instead of CHF 20.

The SBB website is geared to Swiss residents. The Swiss Travel Pass is a tourist pass. Very few travelers with a Swiss Travel Pass order reservations (apart from the few panoramic trains), so that’s probably why they don’t display it. If you want to reserve seats, which is indeed not required, then you can select GA, which is sort of the equivalent to the Swiss Travel Pass for residents.

Note that a reservation will probably only be valid until Visp (end of the main line).

Enjoy your trip!

[Removed user]

10 February 2020 at 18:40:33 #929939

Thank you @Arno – you have been most helpful. I suspect my son is below some age criteria so he gets a free reservation. I would normally not reserve – doing so only because I’ve been told it would be very crowded because of the Easter weekend. And yes – reservation is until Visp, where I would change trains.

[Removed user]

10 February 2020 at 18:50:16 #929940

Hello Mogambo,

You can use below link (from the SBB) to make seat reservations for the journey you mention:
– http://www.sbb.ch/ticketshop/b2c/adw.do?sprache=en&artikelnummer=1993

Best,
Steph

[Removed user]

11 February 2020 at 0:42:56 #929941

Personally I wouldn’t reserve.

I have never reserved a Swiss trains seat in 59 years of travel – even at the busiest times. I’ve rarely seen even family groups reserve in advance and I rarely if ever see anyone having a problem with finding seats.

One point to consider when choosing whether to reserve or not is that if you board a route IC8 train at Zurich Flughafen, it is fairly likely that the train will not be full at that point, and also that the passengers already on board may get off at the next stop (Zurich HB) so there is a good chance of sufficient vacant seats based on those two scenarios.