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SBB website not allowing me to buy ticket

Posted by (Scotland) on

Hi there, I'm trying to buy a Saver Day Pass through the SBB website for a specific day in a few months' time. I've set up a SwissPass account with SBB, and I keep following the steps to buy the SDP, but to no avail.

  1. I log into the SBB website,
  2. I select the pass that I'm looking for, and make sure all the details are correct,
  3. I go to checkout, select the "credit card" payment option, and click through to complete the purchase,
  4. I input my card details into the Datatrans pop-up box,
  5. the pop-up does its thing of saying "verifying", "redirecting"...
  6. and then just sits there with a blank white page, the tab icon just rotating and rotating as if to say "task in progress", so I can't even refresh the page.

Every time I do this, the web address on that final blank page ends in "redirect=true", so I assume that my details have been accepted and there isn't anything wrong with the info I've put in. And it's not just me being impatient - the first time I tried this, I left the webpage there for hours just to see if anything would happen (it didn't).

So far I've tried this multiple times, with two different cards (one debit, one credit, just in case that was the problem), on two different browsers (Chrome and Edge), and run into the same exact problem every time. And I check my SBB account every time I try again, where it displays that I have no tickets, as well as my bank account, where it's clear that no money has been deducted.

Does anyone have any idea what might be going on here, or advice for how to resolve it? Is this a known problem when trying to buy Swiss train tickets with a non-Swiss bank card, or something like that? Is it worth downloading the app and trying to book it that way? Is there a third party, like Trainline or even Deutsche Bahn or something like that, that would be able to sell me this pass while bypassing SBB?

Any help greatly appreciated as I'm completely stumped by what on earth might be the problem here.

Posted by
33628 posts

I expect that it is waiting for acceptance by Two Factor Authentication - they are trying to protect you from somebody steaking your money.

Have you opened your bank's app and approved the transaction? I do that on most card not present transactions these days.

Posted by
33 posts

Hi Nigel, thank you for your comment! I certainly haven't been prompted to approve a transaction any of the times I've tried, and I just tried again while making sure that I had my bank app open beside me and didn't get any kind of "approve purchase" notification or anything like that. Thank you for your suggestion though - it's possible that the Datatrans system is trying to do some kind of TFA thing and just buffering and failing?

Posted by
627 posts

Are the two cards you've tried from the same bank? If so, then the problem may still
be on the bank's end. I would call or chat with the bank and ask if they have seen any
attempt from SBB to initiate a verification/purchase transaction on your card(s).

If the cards are from different banks, then maybe you have some sort of lock on the
cards from your initial settings that don't allow this kind of transaction?

Depending on the bank, it's possible that the cards do not support the authentication
methods SBB/their bank want to use to verify the transaction. While potentially
difficult, SBB technical support may be able to help.

Are you using a VPN? That could cause the downstream servers to complain.

Since you can buy a pass in person at many stations, depending on your point of
entry, maybe you can just wait until your trip.

Finally, I see a list of international sales outlets for SBB products:
SBB intl sales

Posted by
3044 posts

Do you have the SBB app? I would try to make the purchase from the app.

Posted by
33 posts

Thanks everyone for your helpful suggestions! The list of international vendors was particularly useful as it confirmed for me that Trainline was a legit seller of SBB tickets. In the end I was able to successfully purchase a Saver Day Pass through Trainline: I had to put in my initial journey and then it automatically suggested the SDP as the cheapest way to do it. I completed the transaction and Trainline emailed me a SBB pdf ticket that confirms that it's a SDP (not just a point-to-point ticket for that specific journey).

Still no idea what on earth was causing the issue with SBB but at least there was a different option! And it worked out in the end :)

Posted by
1 posts

Please ,how did you find saver day pass on Trainline? I am looking but it's still very expensive..on SBB it doesn't approve payment

Posted by
17284 posts

It is best to start a new post with your own question, rather than tagging on to another one that is months old.

But the short answer is that Trainline should show the Saver Day Pass as an option IF ( and only if): it is cheaper than the point to point ticket price. Note that the Saver Day Pass price starts low and goes up as the travel date approaches. So if your travel date is in the next few weeks, it may not be cheap.

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