Train travel question on the sbb site

Day - Month - Year sequence?

"Half Fare" is not an age (except for child) discount. See: https://www.sbb.ch/en/leisure-holidays/travel-in-switzerland/international-guests/swiss-halffare-card.html

Because you seem like perhaps a new traveler and unfamiliar with the trains and booking...maybe you could just wait and buy the ticket when you get there? There's really no advantage to booking ahead.

Generally tickets can be purchased 1 month ahead. There is really no reason to book that far in advance, unless you are looking for a nonrefundable SuperSaver Ticket. The birthday format is DD.MM.YYYY.
And you need to buy a Half Fare Card, 120 CHF for the 30-day tourist variety, to get the half fare price. You do not actually have to have the Half Fare Card when you buy the ticket. You just have to acquire it at some time before boarding the train. Your half fare ticket is invalid without it.

several train trips within Switzerland that I planned to book ahead of our arrival into Europe in September.

There is no point in buying these tickets ahead of time, and definitely not 5 months ahead.
Unlike other countries, Switzerland has fixed fares. Most tickets are valid on any train, all tickets cost the same, no reservations and no (usually) no discounts for advance purchase.
You are talking about a Half Fare Card, so I guess you will have one. then you just press the "½ price / child" button on the ticket machine when you buy your ticket.

There are some advance discount tickets on some less used trains, you can buy these on the SBB website from 1 month before. These are limited and only on the less busy trains. Advance tickets also give a discount for a Half Price Card.
If you are not getting a discounted ticket just buy from the ticket machine on the day or before (post-dated).

I am not sure why the website would be asking your birthdate. There is no discount for being over 60.

could not purchase a ticket . . . . on the site this morning,

Which site? The site you should be using for all trains in Switzerland is SBB (Swiss Federal Railways): https://www.sbb.ch/en

There is no point in buying these tickets ahead of time....
And if you are worried about how crowded the train will be, the SBB timetable reports predicted "Occupancy rate" with one, two or three figures indicating foreacasted demand.

Thank you !

It is the sbb.ch/en site. I was inputing my birthdate and discount card to see the pricing and possibly buy the tickets - be done and finished.

It was odd - no matter what iteration of the day/month/year I tried AND the half fare kept coming up like I was too old to take advantage of it. I know that any age can have a half fare card.....

The point you made is that I DON'T need to buy tickets yet.....I will wait and probably just buy them there as we have for Germany, Austria, and Italy !

Sam gave you the correct format for the birthdate. You must use periods, not slash, to separate the numbers. Today, for example, is 17.04.2018

I have never had a problem with the birthdate, but I have occasionally had trouble switching it out of the default to Half Fare Card. Other times, no problem.

But bottom line is the only tickets worth purchasing in advance from SBB are when you are riding an international ( cross border) train. You can get significant discounts on these ("Sparangebot" or Special Offer) buy buying 3months ( or so) in advance. But you should check the other country's website as well to compare prices.if traveling between Switzerland and Italy, look on Trenitalia. For France, The Fr nice railsite ( which I always forget). Or use trainline.eu

Excellent thoughts, Lola.

We are taking the train from Como to Luzern. And Lausanne to Paris. So I will definitely look on the French and Italian sites.....