Hi, in July will need train from Pontresina, to Fussen. Will have swiss travel pass so was planning to buy St. Margrethen to Fussen from bahn.de website. Someone recommended we consider not using swiss pass and just buying Pontresina to Fussen, to avoid connection concerns. Please advise.
We are trying to buy all point to point tickets as early as possible for cheapest fares and saver fares are not yet listed for this route on the German rail site. If we can't get a saver fare would definitely be cheaper to only buy ticket from St. Margrethen or Lindau to Fussen.
Maybe I'm missing something. All help appreciated. Thank you!
Posted by
Basel, Switzerland
8889 posts
"Connection concerns" do not really exist. If you have a Swiss Pass, and a ticket from St. Margrethen to Füssen you don't need to get off the train at St. Margrethen, or do anything else special. If your ticket is checked before St. Margrethen, just show both the pass and the ticket.
A ticket from Lindau (first German station) to Füssen won't work, as there would be a gap from St. Margrethen (last Swiss station), via Bregenz (Austria) to Lindau.
Posted by
Seattle, WA
17330 posts
You can buy that as one ticket the whole way from Pontresina from Bahn.de, entering that you have a Swiss Pass under “BahnCard”. The website will figure the deduction and offer you tickets in the Sparangebot and Flexpreis categories. For a random date in July (11/7) I see prices ranging from €29,90 to €44,80.
Posted by
OP
21 posts
Unless I'm missing something, all of the tickets that I've looked at on bahn.de have us changing trains in St. Margrethen. That's why I was concerned if we used our Swiss pass to the border and the train was late we might have a problem starting the German ticket leg. It seems to be about a 30 minute connection time in St. Margrethen and the Swiss trains are usually very timely, so maybe not really an issue. Is there a way on the Bahn.de to put in that we have a swiss pass? I didn't see that option available.
Posted by
OP
21 posts
Thank you Lola and Chris, I didn't know how to put in that I had a swiss travel pass so maybe that was my problem. I appreciate the help!
Posted by
Seattle, WA
17330 posts
Hopefully this link to the opening query page on Bahn.de will come through:
https://www.bahn.de/p/view/index.shtml
See where it says “No BahnCard” (or Ohne BahnCard if using German)? Touch that to get the drop-down menu of possible railcards. If you have a regular Swiss Travel Pass (not Half Fare Card) then select “CH-General-Abonnement” to indicate you have a valid Swiss Pass (make sure it will still be valid on the date you are using it to leave Switzerland).
Edit—I see it returns to the starter page. So put in your start and end points (Pontresina and Fuessen) and date, as well as earliest start time you want, and then hit search. the next page should have the BahnCard button.
Posted by
OP
21 posts
Thank u so much for your help! That was the missing puzzle piece for me 🙂
Posted by
Basel, Switzerland
8889 posts
if we used our Swiss pass to the border and the train was late we might have a problem starting the German ticket leg. It seems to be about a 30 minute connection time in St. Margrethen
Depending on which ticket you buy from St. Margrethen, it may or may not be valid on a later train. There are relatively few trains from Switzerland to Munich, one every 2-3 hours.
But, 30 minutes is an eternity for changing trains in Switzerland. 3 minutes is not unknown! If the incoming train is slightly late, the usually hold the connecting train. A 30 minute delay is headlines in the paper the following day.