Purchasing a Swiss Travel Pass

No not less expensive.
They do have sales sometimes that are only online.
The most recent one ended around May 16 and that was buy a full priced pass get an extra day of travel.
Either way works. Some like to buy it online ahead some wait until they arrive at the airports in either Zurich or Geneva. I have only bought it at both airports and at the train station in Bern.

Thank you. That was helpful!!

We bought ours ahead of time so that it was one less thing to worry about when we got there.

We bought ours at the Zurich airport three weeks ago. We typically purchase ahead of time. There was a l-o-n-g line at the station at the airport which ate up a lot of time. It was an easy process though. In the future I think we'll go back to purchasing ahead of time to save time and the foreign transaction fee charged by my credit card. Wish I'd thought of that fee before our trip. But oh well. We were getting our travel skills back after travel delays due to covid.

Traveler Girl

At the airport were you queuing up at the ticket windows in the concourse, or were you at the travel centre office?

WengenK,

I can only tell you we went to an office one level up from the tracks at the airport station. I don't know what it was called. It appeared to be a large travel center. There were many work stations. We took a number, waited for our number to be called and we were sent to a specific numbered counter. There appeared to be 10 or more counters in two rooms. I think we waited 20 minutes to a half hour. It was not a big deal but we'd never purchased our passes on the day of arrival in Zurich so was a new experience. We were jet lagged so it seemed like three hours...Ha! We had all day to get to Nyon so it wasn't a problem. In fact we had time to stop in Bern for a meal at the Alte Tram Depot, one of our favorite spots. It was a wonderful trip. Wish I was still in Switzerland!

Traveler Girl

If you purchase in advance online you will have an electronic copy, which can go into your Apple wallet, so no stressing about losing a paper copy.
Have a great trip in this beautiful country!

Pat, good to know about the Apple Wallet. So that can be accessed directly offline without internet access? Is it also available as a pdf to print out as a backup? We typically do not get a local sim card and try not to utilize roaming unless necessary, relying on wifi. Did you buy on the SBB website or through the SBB app?

I have always purchased the STP in advance on line.I'm not sure which website I used, probably SBB.
That gives one an electronic copy and you can print a paper copy. If you don't have wi- fi access, you can still open the STP in your Apple wallet. You can also take screen shots of the bar codes and use those, which doesn't require wi-fi access.
Have a great trip in this beautiful country!

There is now a 3% on all sites to buy the STP ahead of time so we just bought it at the travel center when we arrived at the Zurich airport, and there was no fee. Wait was 5 minutes, you have to buy at the travel center (or info desk) as they need to check your passport. True you don't get an electronic copy but we asked a couple of people and they said ok to make a copy. worth it to us to save the 3% fee I guess.

Where have you seen a 3% added charge for the Swiss Travel Pass online purchases? I do not see that on the two SBB-affiliated sites. There is a currency conversion rate (that you cannot control) on the switzerlandtravelcentre.com site if you use your local currency, but you can bypass that by specifying your purchase to be done in CHF. Then your credit card will do the conversion using a more standard daily rate. Or am I missing something?

https://www.sbb.ch
https://shop.switzerlandtravelcentre.com

So, the electronic copy of the pass comes via email and can be dropped into the Apple Wallet? As well as printed? If I buy one for my daughter who is at college out of state right now, and use her name and passport, can it just be forwarded to her for her use in her Wallet? Any difference in this process between buying via the SBB website and via the SBB app?

Thanks all.