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Does Swiss Rail pass work for cross-border trips?

Posted by (California) on

I appreciate that people answer a lot of train questions here! I have one that I've found no answer to when searching online, including on the Swiss rail website:

If you have a Swiss Travel Pass, what happens if you take a train trip that crosses a national border. For example, starting in Switzerland but ending in France or vice versa? Can you use the pass for this trip? Or part of it? How do trips that end or begin in other countries as well as Switzerland work?

I’m trying to figure out whether to buy a Eurail Global Pass or a Swiss Travel pass or both. Here’s the train trips I plan to take (over a period of 15 days in July):

Lucerne to Murren

Murren to Chamonix

Chamonix to Zermatt

Glacier Express from Zermatt to St Moritz

St Moritz to Salzburg

Salzburg to Vienna

The Global Pass would seem best except it won’t cover Glacier Express, or the full trip to Murren but only part of it. So I wonder if I should get both a Global Flexi Pass and a 3 day Swiss Travel pass to cover all my bases.

Any help/thoughts/guidance is much appreciated. Thank you.

Posted by
20358 posts

The Global Pass works for the Glacier Express. It just does not cover the reservation fee, but neither does the Swiss Travel Pass. The reservation fee is separate from any passes. It also covers you at least as far as Lauterbrunnen beginning this year, and possibly as far as Muerren.

Posted by
155 posts

We used the Swiss Pass on our train from Zurich to Milan. The pass covered the portion of the trip in Switzerland to the Italian border and we had to pay for the part of the trip in Italy. I went by the train station the day before and they were able to sell a ticket from the border to Milan. I’m not sure how it would have worked had we not taken care of it the day before. But yes, it did cover the portion in Switzerland.

Posted by
2032 posts

The Eurail Global Pass is valid till Murren, but only via the Lauterbrunnen - Grütschalp route, not via the Stechelberg route.

However you could also get the Swiss Travel Pass, which may be of better value to you. In that case you would need an add on ticket from the border to the destination abroad. One way to get that is to use the SBB planner, and select "GA" as reduction, indicating you have free travel in Switzerland.
For the st. Mortiz to Salzburg trip the quickest route is actually via Scuol, and Landeck. And that route involves a bus, so is not covered by the Eurail Pass.

Posted by
1001 posts

A national pass is valid up to the last stop at which the train stops in the issuing state.

Posted by
7 posts

Thank you so much for all these quick and helpful replies! I was sure that I'd read that the Global Pass doesn't work for Glacier Express (maybe even on Rick's page about Swiss rail travel) but looks like I was wrong, which is great news!

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