Train Pass Questions and Clarification

1. If you are comparing to the Swiss Travel Pass, you are probably right in getting the HFC + BORP. If you get A 6-day BORP, that will cover your arrival day and departure day to Muerren. So you will be covered from Saanen to Muerren, and Muerren to Luzern.

2. Why not just wait until right before the trip to buy these. There is no advantage to buying far in advance.

3. You can reserve seats with out a ticket.

4. No idea.

5. Can't think of any.

I should clarify that question 1 was meant to ask if a 1/2 fare card with the BO Pass was most worthwhile or just getting the BO Pass with point to point tickets for our limited train travel outside of the BO Pass area.

Get the Half Fare Card. With it you can get the free Family Card so your 14 yo travels with you free and you do not need to buy a Children's BORP. The discount on your BORP amounts to 96 CHF, so it is like getting the HFC for 24 CHF. Geneva airport to Montreux is 31.50 CHF and Luzern to Geneva airport is 75 CHF, so you will save money.

I am not at home so don't want to take the time to check, but you should check if the Luzern to Bern le is in fact covered by the BO card. It used to be that the fast route via Zurich was not and the BLS slow route through the Emmental was. If that is true you will want to be careful which train you take.

EDIT - with a few minutes spare I did check. My memory was correct - only Luzern via Langnau im Emmental to Bern is covered, operated by BLS S-Bahn service.

As stated, no need to pre purchase the passes and half fare card, just buy them either the night before your travel when you know all is well or when you land at the airport if you want to mess with it (I don’t like dealing with it at the airport personally, but you can)

I personally didn’t feel like Prestige Class was worth it. It’s bigger seats with less people in the cabin but First Class was fine for us. The Golden Pass Express is a pretty train ride but it’s not epic like some of the more famous rides (Bernina and Glacier). It’s a fine way to go from Montreux to Interlaken, but it’s not something I’d be building my whole trip around or spending a bunch extra on Prestige Class.

An alternative you might consider - land in Geneva and take the direct train to Luzern that night to stay in Luzern for 2 nights, then take the scenic train from Luzern to Interlaken and on to Murren for 5 nights. This would give you a bit of extra time in Luzern instead of “wasting” a night in Geneva. This would keep you from using up a precious half day of your trip on the Golden Pass Express. There are just better uses of your short time in my opinion.

Wanderweg, Thank you for the insight! We will definitely pass on the "Prestige" class. I figured it was not worth the expense but I am glad to get confirmation. In hindsight, your advice to go to Luzern first was probably what I should have planned but it was an after thought as I love a European city with an interesting "old town" and wanted to get a taste before we left. I already made all the hotel reservations a month ago as I saw that much of Murren was already booking up for our timeframe. My mindset, at the time, was not to travel anywhere that first night as we will be getting in at 5pm and will be jet lagged and tired. The thought of sitting in another seat for hours was not appealing to me. I am now thinking that to get an extra night in Luzern and not Geneva I might be able to see if we can add a night to our hotel in Luzern. There is a direct train from Luzern to the Geneva airport the day we leave with no changes at 8:00 am. It arrives to the airport at 11:13 with our flight leaving at 1:15. Or a 7:00 am arriving at 10:13. Is this a stupid option being so far away from the airport on the day of departure?

That should be fine. We’ve made 1 pm flights often being 3.5 hours away from airport. I’d probably do the 7 am one to have some extra buffer. I’d definitely do that instead of going back to Geneva for a second time. You’d be annoyed leaving the nice places to be in Geneva again, which is an international diplomat city, not quaint Swiss vibes at all :)

Thank you! This is so helpful!