Hey everyone, I will be traveling throughout Switzerland for 15 days. I am struggling to pick between the half fare or the swiss travel pass. I am less interested in visiting the musuems and I am more interested in going on trail runs and hiking around the area for beautiful scenery. I will be by myself and I will be traveling from Zurich to Bern, Bern to Grindelwald, Grindelwald to Lucerne, and then back to Zurich to fly out.
Posted by
Green Bay
21993 posts
I used to do extensive calculations on the best deal, and 98% of the time, the Half Fare Card saved the most money. Now you must buy a ticket for each journey, and the argument for the STP is you just hop on and off the trains. Even with the STP, you must buy tickets to ride the trains and lifts above Grindelwald, although you get a discount, but the same discount as with the cheaper HFC. And for some trips, like the train to/from Kleine Scheidegg and the Jungfraujoch, you only get a 25% discount with the STP while you still get 50% with the HFC.
Buying tickets is easy on the fly if you download the SBB app and add your credit card in your account.
With the STP, you are paying a premium for convenience.
Posted by
West Michigan
265 posts
Great info from Sam. Save some money or save time in buying tickets. I'd guess if you just need four train trips, then the math would favor half-fare.
My wife and I bought the STP yesterday. I tried a lot of browsers, internet providers, and credit cards with the SBB website, but I couldn't get the SBB payment processor (Datatrans) to finalise the transaction. I finally gave up and bought our STP's from Rail Europe, no problem with that, but two 15 day passes cost $62 more.
Anyway, I want to add that it's much better to buy online before arriving, because in the past, we've had to wait an hour at the ZRH airport SBB office to buy them. And next week we arrive early on a holiday, and don't want to wait for them to be open.
Posted by
Denver, CO
8 posts
Thanks for this question, STP vs HFC is what I'm trying to figure out, too.
Posted by
1 posts
Have a similar question, but adding my twist. We plan to take the major train journeys like Glacier Express, Gotthard, and Bernina during our 2wks (Lugano->Lucerne->Interlaken->Montreux->Zermatt->St.Moritz to give you an idea of the journey). Likely we will want 1st class tickets on a few of these since they are long. Do plan to do man of the heights like Jungfrau too. Does this change your answer for Travel Pass vs. Half Fare Pass? Trying to figure this out and want to get seats reserved sooner than later (trip is in July) so we can start figuring out the day trips/hikes. Thx!