Swiss rail pass or half fare card

Probably the 8 day Berner Oberland Pass + Half Fare Card. This will make your HFC “free” if you want to use it to explore beyond the Berner Oberland Region. Do know that keeping your car is going to mean you’re paying to park and not use it, since Murren + surrounding Jungfrau Region is done 100% via train/cable car. It may be more advantageous for you to get rid of the car in France and use trains for Switzerland.

The 8-day BORP half fare discount does not quite cover it's cost this year. Not only is parking a cost, you will have buy a 40 CHF Swiss vignette for the car when you enter Switzerland.

I not sure why folks recommend buying the 1/2 fare card and the BO pass. I get that the reduced BO pass saves almost the cost of the 1/2 fare card but the BO 8 day pass costs 287 CHF which isn't free. We were in Wengen for a week last fall with the half fare card and spent less than 140 CHF on transportation that the BO card would have covered. If you go to Jungfrau from Wengen - the cost is the same with the BO card and half fare card so no savings there. Same for getting to Schilthorn from Murren. We found the mountain transportation with the 1/2 fare card very reasonable. We traveled quite a bit in the area using bus/train/cable cars during our stay. Maybe I am missing something? The SBB app is wonderful and made buying the tickets pretty painless.

Kim,
You make a valid point based on your experiences. Those who use the transportation system more over a long stay (6 days or more in my book) will find the HFC plus BORP a winning combo. I track our expenses every year and we always come out ahead, plus the convenience of the BORP means not having to make another purchase for most trips, whether on the app or at the ticket window. The BORP allows us to be impetuous and not even think about the additional cost for joyriding on an inclement day.

To the OP, I agree with the others that your rental car should be dropped at your last stop in France and, depending on where you go after the greater Jungfrau Region, maybe you won't need to rent it again. It cannot possibly be economical to leave it in a garage for 8 days. Also, we see lost souls in Lauterbrunnen every year, staring at their phone's GPS trying to figure out where to go, how to navigate areas they are not supposed to be driving, and generally clogging up the narrow streets, fighting for space with buses and farm equipment, and large trucks. I wish Lauterbrunnen would go car-free and make people park in Interlaken or Wildersvil.

Hi Kim, the main appeal of the Berner Oberland Pass is that almost all other mountain lifts in the area of validity (thus all except the Schilthorn and Jungfrau train) are fully covered with that pass. So are all the regular train rides between villages and towns, including to Luzern, Bern, and Kandersteg, and beyond as far south as Domodossola in Italy.

So that includes the popular Männlichen cablecar from Wengen, the gondola from there down to Grindelwald, the train from Kleine Scheidegg down to either Wengen or Grindelwald, the Eiger Express lift from Grindelwald Grund to Eigergletscher above Kleine Scheidegg, the Grindelwald First gondola, the little cogwheel train up to Schynige Platte, and other lifts further away from Lauterbrunnen, plus boats on Thunersee and Brienzersee, and more. All free with the BO Pass. And only discounted 50% with a Half Fare Card.

A visitor only needs to take a few of these expensive rides to benefit from the additional cost of the BO Pass. But everyone should “do the math” to be sure.

Totally agree one can benefit having both 1/2 fare and BORP but one does need to do the math based on their plans and not just assume it’s right for them because that is what was recommended. I had planned to buy both based on the recommendations from the forum last year but once I looked up the costs of the lifts/trains/bus we would use I could tell we would likely not benefit from having the BO pass. Rick’s travel guide pricing was current as of last year so it made it easy to look at the pricing for the different lifts/trains/etc in the region. Not sure if his pricing is current for this year.

Thanks for these comments. Giving up the car is not an option for us. We are in our mid 70's and manhandling luggage on and off trains is a real challenge. Also, thanks for reminding me about the Rick Steves guide pricing map for the Oberland area.

Daniel - If getting luggage on/off a train is an issue for you, then you’re not going to want to stay in Wengen or Murren, which are both car free villages and require loading your luggage. To Wengen you have to load on/off one train. To Murren you have to either load on/off 2 cable cars (Stechelberg/Schilthornbahn) or 1 cable car carrier at Lauterbrunnen/Grutschalp if they are accepting luggage at that time (they aren’t always) or potentially 1 cable car/1 train if they aren’t accepting luggage transfer when you get there.

Kim - The benefit of the Berner Oberland Pass is not only monetary. When you have a pass you don’t have to buy tickets for any of the included routes, which is convenience for just hopping on/off whenever you feel like it. This benefit is of value to a lot of people. If you are on a tight budget, probably not, but otherwise it’s a convenience value.

Sam - Agreed, the HFC doesn’t completely pay for itself this year with the 8 day pass, but it’s like 12 chf more to get the HFC and if someone is planning to travel to/from an airport or somewhere outside the Berner Oberland, which is likely, it will pay for itself to have the HFC in addition to the pass.

Keeping things in perspective - the train to Wengen is level with the platform, so you can just roll your luggage on and off. There is a lot of room right at the door, so it is possible to park your suitcase(s) right there, no need to haul them throughout the train. It does not get any easier than that.

I would say that this is just as simple and easy as taking your luggage from your car into a hotel and rolling it into the elevator, going up a floor or two and rolling it out again. I just don't want you to get the idea that this process would be exceedingly difficult.

It would take you a bit of time to research, but all train and lift costs can easily be found online either on the SBB website or the websites of the specific mountains that you want to go up. It might help you to just roughly see what your costs might be and then compare with the BO pass. Having a pass does definitely allow for more spontaneous travel, I have found that to consistently be the case for me and my family.

Thank you for the encouragement, Maureen.

Daniel - I assume you have looked into parking at Lauterbrunnen. I just did a quick search and there is large car park garage adjacent to the train station with elevators and trolleys. The parking appears to be quite reasonable as far as cost. It is highly recommended that you reserve a spot in advance. Don’t know if you have gotten this far or not in your planning.

My previous comments were focused on getting on and off the Wengen train with luggage, but something else to think about is the location of your hotel. Wengen is hilly, so if that is potentially challenging you can check out the lay of the land on a topographic map here - zoom in to Wengen. They even have a 3D option that you can play around with.

map.geo.admin.ch

Everyone here on the forum can help you as well, if there is a specific hotel you are thinking of just ask.

Alternately, stay somewhere reasonably flat - Lauterbrunnen, Wilderswil, Interlaken, Matten or Unterseen are all close enough (in my opinion) to be a good base to see the Jungfrau region. Lauterbrunnen, of course, being right in the midst of things. Some of the rentals in these locations will have free parking, and from there you can easily take the train wherever you want to go.

here is the active link to the map

https://map.geo.admin.ch/?lang=en&topic=ech&bgLayer=ch.swisstopo.pixelkarte-farbe&layers=ch.swisstopo.zeitreihen,ch.bfs.gebaeude_wohnungs_register,ch.bav.haltestellen-oev,ch.swisstopo.swisstlm3d-wanderwege,ch.astra.wanderland-sperrungen_umleitungen&layers_opacity=1,1,1,0.8,0.8&layers_visibility=false,false,false,false,false&layers_timestamp=18641231,,,,

Thanks for the good advice about hotel placement. In Murren we are across from the train station at the Eiger Guest House, and in Wengen a VRBO about a six minute walk from the train.

Hi Daniel,

I didn’t realise you were staying in both Mürren and Wengen, I thought it was one or the other. So, Mürren does take more effort to get to…but it looks like you are going at just the right time as from what I have read the new train cars will be operational by then. The ones in use right now being a bit more difficult to get in and out of, especially with luggage.

For anyone interested the beautiful new trains can be seen here:

https://www.jungfrau.ch/en-gb/corporate/jungfrau-railways/jungfraubahn-holding-ag/bergbahn-lauterbrunnen-muerren-ag/

Hum...reading this thread I am wondering if maybe I should do things different.
We are flying into Zurich and heading to Luzern, then to BO area to do that area...wanted to stay in Wengen, but saving lots and doing a cabin in Jungfrau in Lauterbrunnen and just doing the same things, then off to Montreux and then to Annecy. Should I not do the Swiss Pass as originally planned? Thoughts?