Buying Train ticket: Zurich to Milan on SBB

You do not need to have purchased the Half Fare Card to purchase train tickets at the half fare price. You only need to have the Half Fare Card on you when you travel, so you could buy it when you arrive in Switzerland. That is the way it works in Switzerland. They trust that when you buy half fare tickets, you will have a Half Fare Card when they check your tickets on the train, and if you don't, you will be traveling with an invalid ticket and get fined.

To know you have to list your specific routes and price them out to determine if it will be of savings to you. SBB defaults to HFC pricing so you have to uncheck that in order to get full fares. Are your friends driving you places or you’re taking trains to the hike and to Bern?

It is not worth it to purchase a half-fare card for such a short trip.

You can’t make a blanket statement like that, as it’s not always the case if there are expensive mountain trips involved, even on a short trip. Zurich to Domodossola on the way to Milan is over 100 chf, RT Zurich Bern is over 100 chf and if you did an expensive mountain trip like those can be in the 100-200+ range. You have to spend 300 chf full fare to break even with the HFC, so it’s more likely that Saver Day Passes bought in advance for your Bern + Italy days + sucking up the hefty full supplement price for the mountain excursion will be a better deal for you, but it requires listing out the specific plan and pricing out to know for sure.

The Saver Day Passes sell out and get more expensive as you get closer to the date, so you have to commit to the days ahead of time. If the SDP works out for you, then you just need to purchase a ticket on TrenItalia for Domodossola to Milan. Your SDP will get you to the Italian border town of Domodossola.

Zurich to Milano however is not via Domodossola. That is via Chiasso. If you use an SDP pass for this you only need to buy a ticket Chiasso - Milano.

However steeply discounted fares are available for Zurich - Milano if booked sufficiently in advance. On April 19th I see fares as low as 55,50 euro on some trains.

Thanks, everyone. After talking with my husband, I think we won't worry about the half fare. If weather permits, we will just take one train ride to Guarda for a hike and stay in Zurich the rest of the time. (Our friends do not have a car.)

It looks like the "Half Fare Card" on the SBB website costs 190 CHF each so it's not worth it for our short stay. It looks like we can take a train from Zurich HB to Milano Centrale for 78 CHF each so we'll likely purchase that one. If weather is bad and we visit Bern instead of Guarda, the tickets look to be around 108 CHF each.

I appreciate all the input!