Switzerland Rail Passes vs Point-to-Point Tickets: Which Should You Buy?

Are you planning to explore Switzerland by rail and are wondering which Swiss train tickets to buy? Or is a Swiss rail pass for tourists is a better choice? It can be very confusing but don’t worry, in this episode I discuss the different rail passes and Swiss train tickets for tourists to help you decide which is the best option for you.

The Swiss Travel Pass is one of the most popular rail passes for visitors to Switzerland but if you are spending most of your time in the Jungfrau Region, it may not be the best-value rail pass for you.  Two regional alternatives, the Berner Oberland Pass and the Jungfrau Travel Pass, may be more cost-effective for your itinerary.

I highlight who each of the passes is best suited to and weigh up the pros and cons of the Jungfrau Travel Pass vs. the Bernese Oberland Pass, and the Swiss Half Fare Card vs Swiss Travel Pass. I also answer the question “Can I get a Swiss Travel Pass discount?” and discuss the discounts available on other Swiss rail passes.

Also covered in this episode are the Swiss Half Fare Card, the Eurail/Interrail Global Pass and the Tell Pass for the Lake Lucerne region.

I also discuss the different types of point-to-point tickets that are available, share how to get cheap Swiss train tickets, how to buy train tickets in Switzerland and special public transport tickets for children.

If you’d like the various rail passes and Swiss train tickets explained in an easy to understand manner, don’t miss this episode!

Safe travels,

Carolyn

👉 Show notes - Episode 137

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Transcript

Carolyn Schönafinger

Hello, Grüezi, welcome to this week's episode. Today we're diving into one of the most common and most confusing questions for travellers who are thinking of exploring Switzerland by train. I hear this question so often, what kind of train ticket or rail pass should I buy? If you've ever tried to figure out the difference between a Swiss travel pass, a half fare card, point to point tickets or some of the regional passes, you know that it can feel like navigating a maze. Each of the options has its own benefits, pros and cons, and its ideal use cases. But choosing the right one can make a really big difference to your budget, your flexibility, and the overall experience that you have. So in this episode, I thought I would break it all down.

Whether you're visiting for just a few days or planning a scenic rail journey across much of the country, I'll compare the main ticket types and the main types of passes that are available for tourists and highlight who each of these is best suited for. Hopefully you'll come away with practical tips and the right advice to help you decide which ticket or rail pass option is best for you.

Now one thing I wanted to clarify before we get started, when I refer to Switzerland's public transport network in this episode I'm referring to trains, buses, boats and city transport. Now in a few instances the public transport network also includes mountain railways that take passengers up to villages where people actually live and I'll include a map in the show notes for this episode which shows the entire area of the public transport network across Switzerland. It's huge and extremely well connected. You've probably, if you've heard previous episodes and when I've talked about the public transport network, you'll know that it's seamlessly connected between different modes of transport. The train timetables are set so that there's hardly any waiting time between services. And if you're transferring from a bus to a boat or to a train, there's hardly any waiting time and the stations for each of the different modes of transport in most cases are right beside each other so it's super convenient. 

But let's get started with the tickets. The majority of trains in Switzerland have both first and second class carriages, therefore when purchasing your ticket you can choose which class of travel you would like to be in. The first option that I'm going to mention today is the regular point-to-point tickets. These are tickets for a specific journey on a specific date. So traveling from point A to point B. These are best for travelers who have a fixed itinerary and are only making a couple of short journeys. They're the most expensive kind of ticket that you can buy in Switzerland. But the advantage is that they can be used on any service on the nominated travel date. So if you buy a ticket, for instance, from Zurich to Interlaken for the 29th of June, you can travel on any train on that day between Zurich and Interlaken. You can buy the ticket in advance or on the day of travel and it's fully refundable until the day before the day of validity. So it gives you maximum flexibility. You pay only for what you're going to use. But if you're buying a lot of regular point to point tickets, it can get quite expensive. 

So there's a couple of other options. The next kind of ticket is called a SuperSaver ticket.

This is a ticket for a specific journey but at a specific time. So in this instance, you are booking or buying your ticket from Zurich to Interlaken for the 29th of June, at the time of purchase, you have to nominate the time of departure that you want to be on. So you would, for instance, choose the 10.20 am train. The ticket is only valid on that specific train so there's limited flexibility, but it can save you up to 70 % off the regular ticket price. So it's a huge saving. There are a limited number of these Super Saver tickets available on each service and they're non-refundable so before you go ahead and purchase them, make sure you know exactly the date and time and the route that you're going to be traveling on because once you've bought the ticket, there's no refund. 

The final kind of ticket is called a Saver Day Pass ticket and this is great for travelers who want flexibility, but they know the particular day that they're going to travel. With the Saver Day Pass you can buy it in advance between 6 months and 1 day before travel. However, there is dynamic pricing so the price does increase closer to the travel date. When you buy a Saver Day Pass ticket you buy it for a particular day of travel. Let's go back to the 29th of June example. If you buy a Saver Day Pass ticket for this day you can travel on any or as many routes on that particular day as you want. So you could not only travel from Zurich to Interlaken on that day, you could also then travel from Interlaken to Lucerne or Interlaken to Bern. You can travel as much of the public transport network as you wish on that particular day of travel with the one ticket so it's really great for long travel days or spontaneous trips as long as you know which day you're going to be travelling. The Saver Day Pass tickets are non-refundable except in extreme circumstances and you do have to contact the Swiss Federal Railways to request a refund. And like the Super Saver tickets, there is limited availability of these Saver Day Pass tickets so if you can book as far in advance as possible, and like I said they're up to six months in advance they go on sale, that's the best way to secure those tickets. 

So in summary if you are only taking one or two short trips in Switzerland, buying the regular priced point-to-point tickets will give you the most flexibility. If you've got a fixed itinerary and can buy your ticket at least 60 days before travel, Super Saver tickets are worth considering but do keep in mind you have to nominate the time of the service that you wish to travel when you're buying them. If you'd like the greatest amount of flexibility in your itinerary but you do know which days you'll be traveling, the Saver Day Pass tickets are a good option.

All of those tickets can be purchased on the Swiss Federal Railways website which is sbb.ch or on their SBB mobile app. And the Saver Day Passes can also be purchased via the Holidays to Switzerland web shop.

Next up is not really a ticket and it's not really a pass but it's called the Swiss Half Fare Card. You purchase the Swiss Half Fare Card for 120 Swiss francs per person and it's valid for one month from the start date. With the Swiss Half Fare Card you're then entitled to purchase tickets for all public transport and most mountain railways for half price so this is really great if you're staying longer in Switzerland and you don't need a pass or a ticket for every single day of your trip. It's also great if you want to be very, very flexible or if you've just got a regional focus and you want to have the option of buying half price tickets if you decide to take a trip or a mountain excursion.

It's also great for getting discounts off those mountain excursions if you're driving in Switzerland. So if you're renting a car to get around from point A to point B, but you do know that you'll be planning to do some mountain excursions or even lake cruises, having the half fare card means that you can buy tickets for those activities at 50 % off. With the half fare card, any accompanying children aged from 6 to 15 years are entitled to the free Swiss Family Card as well and I'll talk more about that in a moment. 

Some of the benefits of the Swiss Half Fare Card are its relatively low cost upfront price being 120 Swiss francs per person and the 50 % discount that you get off all modes of public transport. If you have the Half Fare Card, you can also buy the Super Saver tickets and the Saver Day Pass tickets for half price as well, there's an added bonus there. Not only could you save off the regular ticket price by having the Super Saver ticket or the Saver Day Pass ticket, you can also get an additional discount by having the Swiss Half Fare Card.

If you have the Swiss Half Fare card you still need to buy tickets for every trip you take. You'll either need to queue up at a station before your trip to buy your half price ticket or buy it online before your trip to make sure you've got your ticket ready to go before you board the train, the bus or the boat.

So let's talk about some of the rail passes and there's quite a few, a couple of which cover the whole country and some which are more regionally focused. Now all the information that I'm about to share about the passes is current as we go to air, but from time to time sometimes there are changes to the inclusions or some of the conditions of the passes. So you can always get up to date info on the articles on holidaystoswitzerland.com, the links for those will be included in the show notes for this episode. 

None of the rail passes sell out. They're always, there's an unlimited number of rail passes, so don't stress about whether you need to buy them well ahead or not even. You can actually even buy them once you get to Switzerland because as I said, they don't sell out. Although I do like buying my pass in advance because it's one, you know, expense of my trip that I get out of the way well ahead of arriving in Switzerland. The travel passes unfortunately rarely go on sale, so there's rarely any promotions or discount offers. The exceptions being occasionally Eurail or Interrail may be on sale a couple of times a year. There's no set dates for that, so you really just need to keep an eye out. And occasionally the Swiss Travel Pass has a promotion. It's not usually a reduced rate, it is usually more like you get an additional day's travel for free. So it might be buy a, buy a three day pass and get one extra travel day free or buy an eight day pass and get two extra days for free, that kind of thing. So there's usually no actual discounted offers as such. And the regional passes, in fact, in the last five years or so, I don't ever recall there being a promotion or a discount offer for those. 

We'll start with the Swiss Travel Pass, which really is an all in one ticket for public transport across all of Switzerland. So with the one ticket, you can hop on and hop off all modes of transport without buying any other ticket. The Swiss Travel Pass is great for travellers who plan to move around frequently or who are travelling on the panoramic trains, especially the Glacier Express and the Bernina Express. Now whilst those train journeys are covered, seat reservations are additional and I'll talk about those more in a moment as well. The Swiss Travel Pass comes in many different options from the number of days that you purchase a pass for and whether you want to use it on consecutive or non-consecutive days. But as well as all that public transport across the whole country that it covers, there are also three mountain excursions which are fully included with the Swiss Travel Pass. And they are the excursions to Mount Rigi, Stanserhorn and Stoos.

Plus you get 50 % off most other mountain excursions with the Swiss Travel Pass. All of those panoramic trains are included as I just mentioned and you also get entry to around 500 museums. The Swiss Family Card is also available for free for any accompanying children aged 6 to 15 years when the parents have a Swiss Travel Pass. So this is a really good all around travel pass. Very, very convenient. It gives you heaps of flexibility. There's no need to buy individual tickets for each trip that you're going to take. You just show your Swiss Travel Pass and that's your ticket. The only disadvantage probably is that when you first look at the prices, you think, wow, it is a significant initial investment but really the freedom and the flexibility and the convenience and all the inclusions, to my mind, make it really great value in most cases. 

The next pass that covers much or well all of Switzerland is the Interrail or Eurail global pass. Now just to clarify, the Eurail pass is for citizens and legal residents of countries outside Europe whereas the Interrail is for citizens and legal residents of Europe, including the UK. Now the Interrail or Eurail global pass covers most of the regular train routes in Switzerland so it's really great if you're combining your trip to Switzerland with a visit to other countries in Europe as well. It does cover the panoramic trains but you only get a 25 to 50 percent discount on most of the mountain excursions. The only boat trips included with the Interrail or Eurail Pass are those on Lakes Thun and Brienz but the boat trips on other lakes are discounted usually at 50 percent. It also comes in various durations and you can choose from travel on consecutive or non-consecutive days. A couple of the benefits, or couple of the bonuses of the Interrail or Eurail global pass are that reductions are offered for seniors, youths and children and there's no need to buy tickets for each trip. Just like with the Swiss Travel Pass you just show your pass and that's the only ticket you need.

The disadvantage for using in Switzerland is that it doesn't include bus rides or city transport and there are no free mountain excursions. Again it's a significant initial investment but if you add up the cost of the trips that you're going to take, you'll probably find that overall you're much better off buying one of these passes.

Now let's look at some of the regional passes. First up the Jungfrau Travel Pass. I know lots of you are planning to visit the Jungfrau region when you're in Switzerland so it makes sense that having some kind of pass will be worthwhile if you're going to do some of the mountain excursions in the region. The two passes that I've just talked about both cover the Jungfrau region of course because they cover all of Switzerland but if you're going to be spending a few days in the Jungfrau region and you're planning on doing a few of the mountain excursions, a regional pass may be a better option. 

The Jungfrau Travel Pass covers train travel within the Jungfrau region and this is basically between Interlaken and Grindelwald, Wengen, Lauterbrunnen, Mürren and Brienz. It also includes mountain excursions operated by Jungfrau Railways. So those excursions are Harderkulm, Schynige Platte, Grindelwald-First, Männlichen and from Lauterbrunnen up to Murren via Grutschalp, so via the cable car and train route, not on the Schilthorn cableway.

You also get discounted travel up to the Jungfraujoch Top of Europe and you get free boat trips on Lake Brienz and Lake Thun. Again, there are various durations that you can choose from, only for consecutive days of travel. The Jungfrau Travel Pass is only available as a second class pass because most of the mountain railways only have second class carriages.

If you also have a Swiss Half Fare Card you can buy the Jungfrau Travel Pass at a discounted rate which is also a great advantage. One of the probably the downsides to the Jungfrau Travel Pass is it's limited to the Jungfrau region only, hence the name. It doesn't include any bus travel and there are no discounts on cable cars up to the Schilthorn.

The next regional pass is the Berner Oberland Pass and whilst this covers the Jungfrau region it also covers much wider than that as well. It basically covers all public transport in the Bernese Oberland and beyond to Lucerne, Bern, Montreux and to Domodossola on the Italian border. So this is really great if you want to explore beyond the Jungfrau region into the entire Bernese Oberland. This pass, as well as all that public transport that it includes, also gives you free travel on more than 25 mountain railways and mountain excursions, including to the Schilthorn, the Brienz Rothorn steam train, and to Oeschinensee, that beautiful turquoise lake that you may have seen photos of. It also includes two panoramic trains, the Lucerne Interlaken Express and the Golden Pass Express. You get discounted travel to another 20 plus mountains including Jungfraujoch. So you've got 25 or more for free and another 20 or more discounted, so such a wide choice of mountain excursions with this pass. And you get reduced admission and discounts to over 40 regional attractions. 

Like the other passes it comes for different durations again just for consecutive days and this one is available for either first or second class travel and again if you've also got a Swiss half fare card you can buy the Berner Oberland Pass at a reduced rate. This pass also offers reductions for youths and you can also add two additional days to your pass on the last day of validity of your current pass. If you're in the region, you've say you're there for five days and you've bought a three day pass, on day three, if you decide this is fantastic, we definitely want to do some more travel on the next couple of days, you have the option of extending your pass for another two days. The only downside is that unfortunately, since this year, 2025, none of the Jungfrau Railways excursions are included, except for Männlichen from both Grindelwald and Wengen, however they are discounted so you still get some reduction with the Berner Oberland Pass.

The next pass I wanted to talk about is the Tell Pass which covers public transport in the Lake Lucerne region. So trains, buses and boats. If you're going to be staying in Lucerne for two or three days or more and you're planning on doing a couple of the mountain excursions it's definitely worth considering buying this pass. There are numerous mountain excursions in the area that are fully included and those include Mount Pilatus, Mount Rigi, Mount Titlis and Stanserhorn and it also includes that panoramic train, the Lucerne Interlaken Express. There's various durations again for consecutive days of travel and again this pass is available for use all year round. In fact there are actually different summer and winter versions of the Tell Pass and it's available as a second class pass only.

So that's basically the most popular rail passes and ticket options for tourists visiting Switzerland. But some of you will be traveling with children so I just wanted to quickly mention the different ticket options for children that are traveling with you. All children under 6 years of age travel free of charge in Switzerland on public transport but if your children are aged from 6 to 15 years inclusive then they will need a ticket. The main options are as follows: 

If you as the parent are travelling without a Swiss Travel Pass or a Half Fare Card your child

should have either a Junior Travel Card or a Children's Co-Travelcard. They both cost 30 Swiss francs and they both entitle the child to travel for free in the same class as their accompanying adult. Both have got slightly different conditions however they can only be purchased from a staffed ticket counter at a railway station in Switzerland. So all you need to do is go to a railway station, tell the staff there what kind of ticket or pass you have, and they will advise you which of the cards is best for your child. You will need to present ID and a recent passport picture of the child, pay the 30 Swiss francs per child and the appropriate

child's card will be issued for you on the spot. If you do have, or do plan, to purchase a Swiss Travel Pass or a Half Fare Card, your children will be entitled to that Swiss Family Card that I mentioned. It allows children to travel for free with their accompanying parents and you should request the Swiss Family Card at the same time that you purchase your Swiss Travel Pass or your Swiss Half Fare Card. Now if you forget to do that it can also be requested at any ticket counter in Switzerland at any railway station. If you do it that way you will need, again, to present ID for the child and the accompanying adult and a photo of the child is also required. So if you're buying your Swiss Travel Pass or Half Fare Card

online in advance, which I highly recommend, it's much easier just to request the Swiss Family Card at the same time.

A few other things to know about tickets and travelling on trains. In most instances in Switzerland, tickets cannot be bought on the train so you've got to buy them before you actually board the train. For most of the trains seat reservations are not required so you can just hop on and sit anywhere in the correct class of travel except if a seat has a reserved sign on it. In many cases, well, this will definitely be the case with the premium panoramic trains, but it is possible on some other regular intercity trains to reserve a specific seat. And in that case, it will have a notice either illuminated above the seat or it might have a cloth with reserved draped over the headrest of the seat. If there's no reserved sign, you can sit anywhere you like. Now I did mention earlier about those panoramic trains and that seat reservations are mandatory for those. After you have purchased your seat reservation, you'll be emailed a confirmation which will show the seat number and the carriage number that has been allocated to you. Your tickets or passes that you've purchased and the seat reservations if they're required must be shown to the ticket inspector when requested and you may also be asked to show your photo ID. These days most tickets are issued digitally and have QR codes so that applies to point-to-point tickets and the rail passes. Usually what will happen is the ticket inspector comes around and scans the QR code to confirm that you have a valid ticket. But I also do like to carry with me just a printed out or paper version just in case my phone battery dies and I'm not able to show the ticket to the ticket inspector as they're coming through the train.

I did mention that most of those tickets and passes are available for either first or second class travel. But if you have bought a second class ticket or pass and you decide for one particular journey that you'd like to upgrade to first class, you can definitely do that. And all you need to do is purchase a class upgrade either at the station or online on the app before boarding the train. you would just put in the route that you're going to do. Let's say again Zurich to Interlaken. It shows you all the different prices and one of the the fare options, so to speak, is Class Upgrade and you would just select that and pay the appropriate amount to travel in first class on that particular sector.

We've covered a lot of information today. I'm sorry if it's so confusing but at the end of the day there's really not a wrong ticket or rail pass to buy but you might save money by choosing one over the other. If flexibility and convenience are the most important thing to you though, paying a bit more might end up being the right choice. So ultimately I think

your itinerary, your budget and the level of flexibility that you want to have are all the key factors in determining what is the best rail pass or ticket option for your trip.

If you're ready to purchase your rail pass, can do so from the Holidays to Switzerland online shop. All the passes are supplied by official suppliers and are sold at the official published price. So you won't pay any more by purchasing via my links. And I'd really be super grateful if you'd consider doing that. 

In episode 69, I shared my four steps for determining which rail pass is right for your trip, and there are lots of other handy resources available that might help you choose the best pass too. So first up is my Swiss Rail Pass Cheat Sheet. It's a free downloadable guide which gives you a quick way to determine which passes might be suitable for your itinerary and which ones to not even consider. That free downloadable guide is available from holidaystoswitzerland.com the link will be in the Show Notes. Or if you want something a bit more robust, have a look at my Switzerland Rail Pass Comparison Calculator. It is an online calculator, as the name says, which has the fares for over 100 different rail trips and mountain excursions in Switzerland preloaded into the calculator. All you need to do is select the trips that you want to take from the dropdown menu and the fares will pre populate into the calculator. And then you just select a couple of the different rail passes that you'd like to compare. It will add in the prices of those and then you can see the tallies of the cost of your trip if you bought individual tickets and the cost of your trip if you bought the different rail passes that you've selected. So it really gives you a summary of what your transport costs are likely to be. The calculator comes with a workbook and an instruction video, so it's a really useful tool for helping you to decide which rail pass is best for you. 

But if you don't want to do any of the work at all and you want someone else to plan and book the whole itinerary and come up with the best option for you, you can book one of the rail packages offered by Switzerland Travel Centre. They have some pre designed itineraries which you can choose from and customize to suit yourself. They'll include the cheapest tickets for your itinerary, they'll book your seat reservations on the panoramic trains, pre book your accommodation which you get to choose, and any mountain excursions that you want to include as well. In some cases they can also pre book luggage transfers for you. And best of all, when you use the Holidays to Switzerland promo code, you'll get 5% off your rail package. So for ease of booking, planning and traveling, that's a great way to go. 

All of those links are in the show notes for this episode, along with links to lots of other helpful articles and podcast episodes about traveling by train in Switzerland, the different rail passes, and some suggested rail itineraries that you might find helpful too. So that's it for this week's episode. I know we've covered a lot of information. I hope I haven't overloaded you, but I've made it a bit easier for you to decide whether or not rail tickets or a rail pass might be the best option for your trip. I know it's all very confusing or sounds very confusing when you start planning your travels by train around Switzerland but if you do have any questions and you can't find the answers in any of those resources that I've mentioned, you can send me an email to hello@holidaystoswitzerland.com or leave a message or a voice message on speakpipe. You'll find the link to do that in the show notes for this episode as well.

Thank you so much for listening. Happy travel planning. And until next time, tschüss.