Swiss Family Card with regular rail ticket?

Here is the verbiage from SBB.
"Children under age 16 travel free of charge when accompanied by at least one parent holding a Swiss Travel System ticket."
I would interpret that as meaning the pass needs to be active at the time of travel. You can get an answer direct from SBB simply by using the contact form on their website. Send today and you'll have an answer Monday morning.

Lee - there is no need for you to activate your pass. As long as you have ANY Swiss ticket on a Swiss Train your kids <16 will travel free on the Swiss Family Card. That's a definite! The free Swiss Family Card will even get your kids to the expensive mountain peaks like the Jungfrau totally 100% free. It's a fabulous deal.

I interpret it the same as Sam does---that the period of k,validity for the Family Card coincides with the validity of the accompanying parent's Swiss Pass.

Please do ask SBB and let us know. Whatever they say, I would confirm with the ticket agent in Switzerland when you buy your tickets to Lucerne.

Flat out - your "interpretation" is incorrect. You don't need a "PASS" of any kind to use a Swiss Family Card. All you need is a ticket of some sort.

I do not think my interpretation is "flat out" incorrect.

I contacted the Swiss Travel System using the form on their website. I asked about a family traveling in Switzerland for 10 days, using an 8-day Swiss Pass and Family Card. I said they would not activate the pass until Day 3 and would buy regular tickets for travel on Day 1 from Zurich Airport to Lucerne. Could the child travel free with the Family Card or should they buy a ticket for the journey on Day 1?

Here is the response I received:

"Thank you for your email and the interest in our Swiss Travel System.

We offer a Swiss Family Card free of charge in combination with the Swiss Pass, please get a regular ticket for your child as well.

We wish you a very pleasant stay in Switzerland.

Kind regards,

Swiss Travel System AG
Pinia Ziegler"

In the original, the words "in combination with" are underlined, but it did not come through when I copied it.

Maybe I can help.

The Swiss Travel System (STS) website uses the word "Ticket" in both the English and German versions of the site to refer to what we would call a Swiss Pass or Swiss Card. ( The French version uses the word "Billet" which means "ticket" in French but is different from what SBB calls point-to-point tickets. The German version of SBB will sell you a Billett (2 T's).

Look at this Swiss Travel System page where they list the "tickets" they sell:

http://www.swisstravelsystem.com/de/home/tickets-de/ticketuebersicht.html

Note that is it only passes and cards, no point-tp-point tickets at all. These are all passes and cards available to foreigners only, not Swiss---the Swiss Pass, Flex Pass, Transfer Ticket, Swiss Card, Half-Fare Card, and ( free) Family Card. These are no p2p tickets sold by the Swiss Travel System website.
For those, you go to SBB.

The Swiss nationals have their own array of price reductions, which are sold on the SBB website. These are called "abos", short for Abonnement or reduction. Most common is their one-year Half Fare Card.

The Swiss cannot get a free FamilynCard with any of their Abos. Instead, they pay 30 CHF for a Junior Card which is valid for one year. It allows a child age 6 to 16 to travel for free with a parent regardless whether the parent is traveling on a full price p2p ticket or with an Abo ticket. Each child In the family must have his or her own Junior Card, although the cards are free after the first two.

This is different from the STS Family Card, on which all children in the family are listed on a single card. (We have used these so I am familiar with how they work).

In short, the Junior Card and Family Card are not exact equivalents. The former can be used when parents are traveling on p2p tickets; the latter cannot.

This makes sense if you consider that the Family Card is a Swiss Travel System product. It is designed strictly for use with the Swiss passes and cards sold by STS to foreigners. These are (somewhat confusingly) called "tickets" on the STS website, but they are not p2p tickets at all.

Bottom line: the Family Card cannot be used for free travel when the parents are using p2p tickets. But while the Swiss cannot get a Family Card, foreigners can buy a Junior Card. So families traveling in Switzerland without passes can still get free travel for their children.

I appreciate you guys doing the legwork for me. :-)

I'll find out for sure when we buy tickets in Zurich, and hopefully remember to post the results here.

After arriving in Zürich, I went to the SBB office and asked if the family card could be used without the rail pass being active in the answer was "no". The family card is tied to the rail pass, not to any tickets in general.

The weather was crazy cool. Is that unusual? We had a great time, though, especially after picking up some extra warm clothing.

Thank you for reporting back! It is good to know which answers posted above were correct, so next time someone asks there should be no dispute.

As for the weather, we have cold rainy weather in the mountains in August , as well as in June and July. Sometimes alternating with bright sunny days, so one must be ready for anything.

Apart from the cold weather, how was your trip? Do you have time to write a trip report?

I hope Tim sees this.

Also could have called Rail Europe .......

At the very least, if the adults are buying half-price tickets during the validity period of the Swiss Pass, then the kids are still free with the Family Pass. We have told customers this for many years and have never had any negative feedback. With the 8-day consecutive pass, this works when you buy a discounted ticket for a high mountain lift. With a flexipass, it works when you choose to use your half-fare benefit in between your full coverage rail pass days.

The Swiss reply about activation is probably tied to the fact that the Swiss Family Card is activated and stamped at a train station at the same time that you activate the pass. If you were buying tickets after the pass expired, I think the answer would be different. I have always understood a point-to-point ticket to also be a Swiss Travel System product. Single tickets are mentioned at http://www.swisstravelsystem.com/en/discover/what-is-swiss-travel-system.html: "•STS tickets are obtainable from our Online Shop at all Swiss railways stations or points-of-sale worldwide," and that "Online Shop" link does go to a working shopping cart. A Eurail-brand (multi-country) pass is not a Swiss Travel System product.

Laura, unfortunately that link produces an error message. But as I explained above, what the Swiss Travel System website refers to as a "ticket" is what we call a pass or card (Swiss Pass, Flex Pass, Swiss Card, Half-Fare card, Berner Oberland Regional Pass, etc.). This is all you can purchase on the STS a website, which is designed for non-Swiss people and is separate from the SBB website ( where you buy actual p2p tickets).

You will see this if you choose "Tickets" from the menu bar on that page you linked---they give a list of Swiss passes on offer. Or maybe this link will show it:

http://www.swisstravelsystem.com/en/tickets-en/ticket-overview.html

And yes, the Family Card will give free travel to kids when the parents buy half-fare tickets with that feature of a Flex or Swiss Pass. We have benefitted from that feature ourselves on many occasions when our kids were younger. But again, that is only during the period of validity of the parents' pass---in other words, after they activate it (which is required for the parents to use the half-fare feature).

Good to point out that the family card does not work with multi-country Eurail passes. It works exclusively with the STS products listed on their website.

I finally got my notes together enough to add a trip report.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/sensational-switzerland