Ok, so we're going from Paris to Murren and then from Bern to Rome in late May. We're going to spend about 3 days around the Murren area. Which would be better: to purchase a Eurorail Pass or a Swiss Pass. It seems as if traveling aroung the Berner Oberland area would be cheaper if we had a Swiss pass but then would we get the same discount on the Paris-Bern and then the Bern-Rome trip as if we had a Eurorail Pass. (Don't tell me to look at point-to-point. I already have and the Eurorail pass makes it cheaper).
Posted by
Ottawa, Canada
4555 posts
Where did you check your point to point prices? As far as I am aware, the Swiss Pass will only give you a discount on the Lyria trains between Paris and Bern, and it cost you a day on your pass to get the discount. Nothing available from Bern-Rome. Paris-Berne can be had for as little as 25 Euro second class, and 55 Euro first...cheaper than wasting a day of a Swiss or Eurail pass. Bern-Rome is about 90 Euro.
Posted by
OP
Prairie Village
41 posts
I checked the point-to-point on the Eurorail website. For a family of 4, which is what we are, for 1st class from Bern-Rome it quoted a price of $1120 which is only $500 cheaper than if I purchased a 5day Select Saver Eurorail Pass.
Posted by
Ottawa, Canada
4555 posts
Both Eurail and RailEurope grossly overcharge on their point to point tickets, and don't offer anywhere near the schedules available from the national rail websites. Especially if your travel dates are fixed, you can get some excellent deals on their websites. You can try www.tgv-europe.com for the Paris-Bern tickets, and www.trenitalia.com/en/index.html for the Bern-Rome tickets. I'm not knowledgeable about the Swiss rail system, but I believe there are far cheaper passes you can purchase from them.....I'm sure other posters will be able to tell you. You can check yourself at the Swiss national rail system, www.sbb.ch/en . In fact, there's quite a discussion going on now. Use the upper right search box for Swiss or Switzerland and see what comes up.
Posted by
Lakewood, Colorado
19274 posts
David, you could NOT have checked the Eurail (or EuroRail) website (which is www.eurail.com) or you would know that Eurail does not sell point-point tickets. You probably looked at RailEurope, which is a subsidiary of French Rail and is famous for ripping off Americans, showing artificially high prices for point-point tickets to get them to buy railpasses.
Posted by
Elk Grove, CA, USA
6898 posts
I looked at the Bern to Rome train run for a family of 4 on the www.trenitalia.com website. It's 460.40euro for 2nd class and 699.20euro for first class for a family of four.
You could be looking at just over $2,000 for a 3-country Eurail Select pass. Plus, you will pay extra for seat reservation fees on the faster trains and, if you plan on visiting the Jungfrau and/or Shilthorn in the Berner Oberland, even the Swiss passes only cover 50% of the cost from Wengen to the Jungfraujoch and from Muerren to the Shilthorn.
Somebody correct me as I'm out of town on business and I don't have my RS book, but is the eurail pass good for any part of the trip up to the Jungfraujoch or Shilthorn or do you get a discount similar to the Swiss Pass?