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Using one day of our Swiss Travel Pass to get from Switzerland to Paris?

Posted by on

One of the bonuses listed with the Swiss Travel Pass on the Rail Europe website is :

"The Swiss Travel Pass offers reservations on many high speed and night trains. A reservation is used in conjunction with your rail pass and replaces a full fare ticket on a train that requires reservations. Travel on these trains will require you to use 1 day on your rail pass. The following trains offer reservations with a Swiss Travel Pass: TGV Lyria, City Night Line"

Am I right in that if we have an 8 day pass, we could travel within Switzerland for 7 days and then use our last day to take the TGV Lyria train from Lausanne to Paris?

Posted by
32214 posts

Cindy,

I'm not sure if the Swiss Pass includes the ticket for the France portion of the trip, but one point to consider is that the TGV trains limit Passholder reservations on a quota basis. Once the quota is sold for a particular train, Passholders would no longer be able to buy the compulsory seat reservation. The only choice in that case would be to take a later train that still has Passholder reservations available, or just buy a regular ticket (which would include the reservation).

Posted by
16893 posts

No, the Swiss Travel Pass does not cover the majority of the train to Paris, only the portion of it that's within Switzerland, which is not much if you're starting from Lausanne. It could be more coverage if you boarded a TGV at Zurich, but on the other hand, that coverage can't be combined with the advance-purchase TGV discounts. Just book the separate TGV ticket now for departure from Lausanne; advance discount fares for the direct train start at $36 per person through Rail Europe. If you take a TGV departing from Basel (another common choice), then Basel is the official border station and the whole trip is within France.

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