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Swiss Rail Pass no longer includes bonuses

I purchased a Swiss Rail Flexipass for 4 days in May. When it arrived, I noticed that there was no information about any of the hotel discounts or bonus trips that were mentioned on the website. I had waited to book any of these until I received the pass.

Lo and behold, when I called about it, I was told that the website has not yet been updated, but they are no longer offering any of the bonuses, such as the Lion Monument and Panoramic Painting in Lucerne, the Lake Lucerne boat trip, the free guided walking tour in Basel, or any hotel discounts.

I had been talking to Eurail for several days to determine which pass was best for me, and no one mentioned anything about this.

I feel like I just got gipped out of the product I paid for. They did offer me a full refund, but how else would I get around Switzerland?

I am very disappointed, and just wanted Rick's readers to know about this.

Posted by
16895 posts

Boats on Lake Lucerne and other lakes are still covered on your 4 rail pass travel days. See the map of validity at http://www.swisstravelsystem.com/en/home.html or your paper copy. Over 480 museums are also covered on those 4 travel days.

The problem of updating web sites and updating phone agent training is a real one. Switzerland did make a number of changes to their pass at the start of the year. Unfortunately, it does not surprise me if Rail Europe or other web sites are behind schedule in making web updates for the bonus details; I think that info gets handled last. Our Swiss rail page is up to date, but we have never bothered to mention some of the little extras. FYI, those "miscellaneous" bonuses also never were described on the printed Swiss Pass materials, perhaps because they were too transitory.