Eurail vs. individual country passes (German Rail Pass+Swiss Travel Pass) & where/when to buy

I think (1) is the answer, but see below.

"2. See if they are sold in the Zurich train station and buy them there?". I very much doubt they are sold there as it is run by SBB (Swiss Railways), not DB (German Railways)
Note, you will be at "Zürich Flughafen" station, the one at the airport. "Zürich station" is the one in the centre of the city, officially "Zürich HB".

"3. Hope that when we cross into Germany on the train from Switzerland to Germany that we will be able to buy the German Rail passes at the first German train station we stop at?" - No hope. Two problems with this plan:
A) Your Swiss Pass is only valid to the last Swiss station. A German Pass is valid from the first German (DB) station. Unless that is one and the same station, you are not covered between the two.
B) The route from North-East Switzerland to Füssen is round the east end of Bodensee (a lake): St. Margrethen (last Swiss station) - Bregenz (Austria) - Lindau (first German station). You have a short section of ÖBB (Austrian railways) which is covered by neither pass.
You need to buy an extra ticket for St. Margrethen - Bregenz - Lindau.
If you get off at Lindau to buy your pass (or validate it) you will miss the train, and have to get the next one. You need to have it validated before you start, or by the conductor on the train.

Salzburg is a joint DB and ÖBB station. German tickets are valid to Salzburg, but no further.

When you costed individual tickets against a pass for Germany, did you use "walk-up" fares, or discounted fares you buy in advance.?It makes a big difference.

Yes, what is the source of the German rail fares you used for your comparison? I am beyond doubtful that you need a German rail pass.

Also, you allude to museums. I am not aware of a German rail pass that includes museums, though I could be mistaken about that.

Exactly where are you currently planning to go in Germany? That country has some fabulous deals on regional trips. Some include Salzburg. In some cases the first person pays an already-low fare, then the second and third add just a modest amount to the total. Under those circumstances, it's very hard to make a German rail pass pay off. You'd have to be doing something like Munich (1)-Berlin (2)-Hamburg (2)-Essen(1)-Freiburg(2)-Munich(3). (Even then I'm not sure.) Which I trust is not your plan.

I totalled costs my point-to-point trips based upon the following on-line DB 2nd-class prices (they vary depending upon the train so I selected median prices). I didn't plan on buying these tickets much ahead of time since I want some flexibility in my schedule. The prices below are for two adults and a youth in late June-early July:

1. Lindau>Füssen: 34 €
2. Füssen>Tegelburg (RT): 34 €
3. Füssen>Munich: 34 €
4. Munich>Salzburg: 37 €
5. Salzburg>Rothenburg ob der Tauber: 90 €
6. Rothenburg ob der Tauber>Berlin: 180 €

This comes to about 430 €. I realize that there are cheaper prices online for some of these routes but I am limiting my searches to trips that didn't have really short station transfers or too many transfers. The online price for 2 adult twin passes + 1 youth 7-day Flexi pass is 650 €. I figured that the difference would be offset by nearly two weeks of free municipal bus fares, museum discounts, etc. like the Swiss Travel Pass. However, now that you've pointed out that the German Rail Pass really doesn't provide discounts in the towns/attractions I am going to visit (except Berlin transit) I think that the point-to-point tickets in Germany will be a better choice. Note: For the 3 of us, Berlin 3-day transit seems to range from 63 € to 83 € (Welcome-Card) and that is still not enough to cover the difference between point-to-point rail tickets and the rail pass.

Thank you, I appreciate the guidance with planning our trip.

By "Tegelburg", are you referring to Tegelberg cable car? It is reached by bus from Fuessen. Prices on the cable car RT are per person, but there is a discount with a guest card if you are staying at a participating hotel in the area and it may also include free use of local buses.

Salzburg to Rothenburg can be done with a Bayern ticket for 37 EUR total and takes 6 1/2 hours with 3 changes. The fastest way using trunk line trains is a bit more than 5 hours with 2 changes. These are 90 EUR total only if you buy restricted advance tickets well ahead of time. Otherwise walk-up fares are 228 EUR and up. So it seems like an extra 1 1/2 hours of your time might be worth it, especially if flexibility is important.

Thanks, Sam! Great things to know and prepare for - noted!

Don't just automatically buy a Berlin transit pass, much less the Welcome Card (with transit-pass component). A lot of Berlin's sights are potentially extremely time-consuming--depending on the degree of your interest, of course. You may not end up having time to visit as many places as you expect, which reduces the value of both a transit pass and the Welcome Card.

With respect to using the Welcome Card at the museums on Museumsinseln (and I would definitely not skip the Pergamon), as of 2015:

• The card did not allow you to skip the line to get into any of the museums, which stretched to more than 1 hour during the period of my visit. (Not an issue at the other museums I visited, where entry waits were not significant.)

• If there was a special exhibition going on for which the museum had raised its entry fee, you had to pay the full augmented entry fee, not just the up-charge, receiving no benefit whatsoever from having the Welcome Card (and for perhaps having contorted your schedule to visit said museum while the card was still valid).

I adored Berlin. I'm a 20th-century history nut, so all those Cold War sites were very interesting to me,and I loved the city's museums as well, but that Welcome Card was way more trouble than it was worth to me, and I doubt that it ended up saving me one penny. It certainly meant I was a less efficient tourist, since I didn't base my itinerary solely on geography.

It's now three years later, and the entry procedures related to the Welcome Card may have changed, but I would not buy the Welcome Card with the Museumsinseln add-on again unless I found statements in writing, indicating that it confers skip-the-line privileges and covers the base entry fee at the MI museums.

After I posted about my negative experience in 2015, someone on this forum pointed out that there is a different option, the Berlin Museum Pass (3 days, 29 euros for adults, 50% off for students), whose web site indicates that it means "no queueing at the museum", but also recommends booking a time-slot ticket for the Pergamon. Whether that "no queueing" bit holds true is ultimately up to the personnel working at the museums on the day you visit. I saw a suggestion in an old TripAdvisor thread that holders of the pass go to the group-ticket window (usually with no line) rather than standing in the regular ticket line if they are told they must get a ticket for the day.

There is also a one-day Museum Island pass for those who want to squeeze in visits to multiple places on Museum Island but have only one day to do it. The card will save money even if you visit only two of the museums (and doing more would require being very selective). Here's the key information:

"Visitors to Berlin who want to visit several institutions on the Museum Island in one day would be well advised to purchase a Museum Island pass for 18 euros (concessions 9 euros). Individual tickets cost 12 euros (the Pergamon Museum and Neues Museum) or 10 euros (Old National Gallery, Altes Museum and Bode Museum)."

My plan for future trips is to get the 3-day Berlin Museum Pass and then take a look at whether the plain Welcome Card is worthwhile, based on the costs of the non-museum (mostly commercial) sites I plan to visit.

It might also be useful to know that virtually every German museum I visited during 2015 required that all bags, including women's handbags, be checked. Often there were lockers that took 1-euro and 2-euro coins. Someone later told me that the coins are returned when the key is replaced, but I didn't realize that and left a lot of coins behind!

Hi,

Based on a your itinerary listed above and the length of the trip, I would not recommend getting a Pass. Except for the journey to Berlin, you're doing regional traveling, something which I don't do on my trips. I use a Pass in Germany, purchase it on-line with free delivery prior to the trip but would not with your itinerary.

I would add that if you really want a German rail pass you could consider mixing and matching. Get a Flexi pass with just enough days to cover the long journeys and buy the short journeys the day of. Although Fred is probably right in that a pass doesn't make sense for your itinerary.

ETA: - I believe the German rail pass would need to be bought in advance, and if you are certain you want a Swiss rail pass if you buy them both in advance you can probably avoid shipping fees.

The online price for 2 adult twin passes + 1 youth 7-day Flexi pass is 650 €.

Ok, let's compare (prices for 2 adults; children under 15 yo are free, if older add (1) €6 to each of
the €31-prices below, which are Bayern Tickets valid after 9am, all day on weekends and holidays, (2) a ful fare ticket for the Rothenburg - Berlin trip):

Lindau - Füssen €31/2
Füssen - München €31/2
München - Salzburg 31/2 (a bit cheaper if you don't need local transport in Munich)
Salzburg - Rothenburg 31/2 by regional transport, from €100/2 using long
distance trains, time difference approx. 1 hour.
Rothenburg - Berlin from approx €120/2 (if you book now; walkup fare from €270/2)

That's approx €244 for the entire family, provided your son / daughter is under
15 yo (if s/he is older you would end up with approx. €330).

BTW, I don't think that the Tegelberg cable car honors a rail pass and I don't think
either that the RVO bus to the valley station does (that bus trip costs only a
few € anyway).

Thanks for the info. As stated in my original post, my daughter is 17, so requires a Youth pass.

You show RT from Füssem to Tegelburg (Tegelberg) as an individual item. I assume that that trip is not on the same day as either Lindau to Füssen or Füssen to Munich and that you are spending at least two nights in Füssen. If so, you should receive a "Füssen Card" with your accommodations in Füssen. The Füssen Card will give you unlimited use of the buses in Füssen (actually in a much larger area), and, it appears, at least one free ride up the Tegelbergbahn. So delete 34€ for item 2. BTW, are you staying IN Füssen and spending another day at the castles? If so you will also need bus transportation from Füssen to Hohenschwangau. That fare, like the trip to Tegelbergbahn, will be nominal and will be covered by the Füssen Card but not by a rail pass.

Where are you staying in Munich? Is it within walking distance of the Hauptbahnhof? If you need to use additional conveyance (S-/U-Bahn, trams, or buses) of the MVV (Munich metro) to get to your hotel, all will be covered by a 37€ Bayern-Ticket but not by the 34€ Allgäu-Schwaben-Ticket. Additional travel in Munich would be covered by a rail pass, but only by S-Bahn, not by U-Bahn, trams, or buses. Likewise, if you need to use any conveyance of the MVV to get to the Hbf (or the Ostbahnhof) on your way to Salzburg, you need a Bayern-Ticket. If not, you can use a 35€ Meridian Guten-Tag-Ticket.