Urgent Swiss Rail Pass Purchasing Question, Please.

According to the Swiss Travel System official website, you can buy the 2-for-1 passes at all Swiss Travel System points of sale: http://www.swisstravelsystem.com/en/specials-en/2for1-swiss-pass.html "The Passes are on sale at all Swiss Travel System point of sales or at Online shop."

Here is more from the Swiss Travel system website, in the "booking tickets area: "If you have already planned your travel programme in detail, it is advisable to purchase the Swiss Pass in advance. There are points-of-sale in many countries and you can also order the Swiss Pass online. Prices may vary depending on shipping fees and currency exchange rates. Please bear in mind that the Swiss Transfer Ticket is not purchasable in Switzerland. If flexibility is important to you and you wish to choose when and where to travel once you are here, we recommend that you buy the Swiss Pass in Switzerland. They can be purchased at all main railway stations."

Rich, I am not sure what your concern is Where do you see a price change? MySwitzerland is still showing the price for the 4 day Flex Pass as $290 for two, which is the same RailEurope price shown on this website. Swiss Travel System shows 262 CHF which has not changed either. It may be too late to buy them in the US in dollars but you could work through the purchase form on this website or MySwitzerland ( they both take you to the RailEurope site) and see what shipping options they offer, if any, with your departure date. I thought you were leaving the 15th? It does appear too late for that, but maybe not if you are not departing until a week from today. But why are you stressing about this now? I suggested earlier that you buy them ahead, on this website; that is what I do and generally recommend that. You said you wanted to buy in Switzerland so I didn't push it. But there is always the chance that if one waits, the price could change. But As far as I can tell, the 4-day Flex has not changed, it is still 262 CHF for two.

Hi Rich,
We traveled to Switzerland 2 years ago. I am a planner and like to have travel fairly well arranged prior to leaving the US. i spent countless hours trying to figure out how to purchase the pass ahead of time with no luck. It was absolutely no problem to get the pass when we arrived in Switzerland. Took only a few minutes at our first stop in Switzerland. The Swiss are amazingly efficient. Enjoy, we loved Switzerland! Pam

It should not take hours to figure out how to buy a Swiss Pass ahead of time. Most kinds can be purchased right on this website. And you get a bonus shopping discount, whichnis good if you need luggage.

Thanks all for your quick responses and helpful information. The stress came when my links to the Swiss Pass sites I had been using since February were not working yesterday ("Page Not Found"). There were changes to the sites once I found them again and created new links. Simultaneously, a couple of other blog sites had information that the passes could only be purchased online in the U.S. and a different last day to purchase Passes was also listed. Someone there also explicitly stated that you could not buy Passes, including the 2-For-1's at Swiss points of sale. We had decided in February to get our passes upon entering Switzerland for ease and value, and so now I thought the purchasing conditions had suddenly changed, or I had misunderstood, and it was getting to be last minute for us. Thus this post. Lola, as she always does so very well, was quick with the clarification. Regarding the difficulty of choosing a pass, after reading several old posts weeks ago about the different Passes and seeing others finding some difficulty in divining which one was the best value for their trip, I did a spreadsheet. It wasn't very hard to figure it out, but it did take some time for a trip like ours to do the math for three people. We also had a fourth person needing to wait to decide whether to join us from Paris--another reason we decided to hold off on buying passes. Long story, but I was a little panicked there for a minute that I had misunderstood the 2-For-1 Passes and purchasing them. The prices have indeed not changed. I saw a price that was CHF, but thought it was USD. My bad. Thank you all so much for your help. I have come to really like and trust this website. Rich