Trenitalia booking

OK, with a 4-day Flex pass you would use it for the 15th (Italy to Luzern, the 17th (traveling to Montreux) and the 18th (trip to Broc factory, round trip, and possibly to Geneva that afternoon (did you consider Chateau de Chillon instead? you could ride the boat there or take the train from Montreux), and finally the trip from Montreus to Geneve airport on the 19th. this is only 33 CHF, but you need to Pass to still be valid so the children can ride for free. Here are the prices for the Pilatus Golden Round trip: http://www.pilatus.ch/webautor-data/163/Pilatus-Preisliste-2012.pdf You will see that the trip with the "Half-Fare" reduction available with the Flexi Pass is 49.10 CHF. If you use a "covered day" on your FlexiPass to cover this trip, the cost is 34.00 CHF; it is not free because most of this journey is by recreational lifts and trains that are never fully covered. So there is no point using a "covered day" on the Flexi Pass for this trip. I hope that makes sense. I know it is complicated! You can read about the Flexi Pass and the half-fare feature here: http://www.swisstravelsystem.com/en/home/tickets-en/ticketfinder-en/swiss-flexi-pass-en.html Click on th elittle "map of validity" arrow to see a diagram showing the fully-covered and 50%-coverred routes. You could also buy a 3-day Flex Pass and buy tickets on Trenitalia for the Milan to Arth-Goldau leg with the SMART2 fare, and buy 4 tickets from AG to Luzern (children would not be free as you haven't activated your pass). This is the option you could follow if you cannot get a Swiss Pas shipped to Dubai and plan to buy it in Switzerland.

To get the lowest fares you'll need to do three separate bookings. 1. Florence-Milan departing at 08:55 and arriving at 10:40. Book on trenitalia.com. If you had booked sooner, you could have gotten MINI fare tickets as low as €9.00. The cheapest MINI fare ticket still available costs €49.00. You'll do better getting the family discount on regular tickets. For three adults and one child the total fare will be €175.00. 2. Milan to Arth-Goldau, departing at 11:10 and arriving at 14:09. Book on trenitalia.com. The Smart fare (€19.00) is the lowest discount fare, regardless of age. Buy four adult Smart fare tickets. 3. Arth-Goldau to Lucerne, departing at 14:14 and arriving at 14:41. Book on the Swiss Rail site. The adult fare is 12.20 CHF. Both of your children can travel for half price.

Thank you for replying . Sorry still not able to book. I was trying the Milano to Arth-Goldau sector for the 11.10 train. The seats are not available when I enter the smart fare. Is it because all theseats are fully booked? Will there be any slot available in the coming days. Most of the seats in that sector seats are not available, but when you change the smart fare seats become available. Once again thank you for your valuable reply!!

Yes, you are correct. I just checked the Trenitalia site and found that the Smart fare tickets on the 11:10 train are gone for 15 July (not surprising at this late date), but you still can get Smart 2 fare tickets (€29.00).

The SMART fares are the lowest and they sell out. Then it goes to SMART 2 which are not as low but still better than full price. The GA Switzerland price applies if you have a Swiss Pass and are using it on this trip ( in which case you would not need to buy a ticket from Arth-Goldau to Luzern either). How long will you be in Switzerland? You children can travel for free there if you get a free Family Card ( with a parent having a Swiss pass of some type) or a 30 CHf Junior Card (if the parents are not using passes but buying tickets).

ohhh thank you so much. I`ll do the booking right away. One more last question...the Art-Goldau to Luzern sector do I need to reserve it? We will have luggages. If I want to buy it online, does the swiss system have online booking? If they don;t have online booking how will I collect the ticket? Once again I really appreciate your prompt help. Thank you !!

Thank you Lola, we will be in Switzerland for 5 days. Right now we are thinking of taking a point to point ticket for the Arth-Goldau to Luzern sector. We are not sure on how to get online tickets for the Luzern sector. Then for the rest fo the 4 days we plan to buy a swiss saver flexi pass so that we will get a swiss family card along with it and the children will be covered. I don't know...is this a good option?

No, you don't have to reserve tickets for Arth-Goldau to Luzern. There is open seating and no reservations are possible. Yes, you can book tickets on the Swiss Rail site and they will be good on any train on that route, but there is no real need to do so. There are at least three trains/hour between Arth-Goldau and Luzern. You could easily wait and buy your tickets in Arth-Goldau. Lola has spent time in Switzerland and I haven't. When she reads your latest note I'm sure she'll get back to you with detailed advice about passes and family cards.

Here are my thoughts. If there is some way to buy your Swiss passes in advance, you can use it on the trip into Switzerland from Milan. You can buy Swiss Passes on this website, but they do not ship to Dubai. Maybe Rail Europe? )r buy directly from SBB? I'm not sure what shipping charges apply, but it is worth looking into. If you have the Swiss passes and Family Card, then for the trip from Milan to Arth-Goldau you would use the "GA Switzerland" price which is 15,90 euro, instead of the SMART 2 fare. In other words, you are just paying for the italy portion of the trip, as the Swiss portion is covered on the past. You would still need 4 of those. then you would use your Swiss pass to cover from Arth-Goldau to Luzern, so no ned to buy a ticket at all. For the passes for the adults, the most cost-effective might be the 3-day Flexpass (Saver). This is $234 in US dollars, similar price in CHF if you buy it from SBB. The 3-day Flex would give you 3 full-covered travel days (Swiss border to Luzern, your last travel day in Switzerland, and one other long travel day, and all other travel is 50% off (and still free for the children). We usually use a 3-Day Flex pass even though we are spending 2 weeks in Switzerland, using it for the 3 most expensive journeys and then using the half-fare feature for the rest. The fully-covered travel only applies to travel between towns and villages by train or boat. The recreational and tourist lifts and trains (like Schilthorn, Mt. Titlis, Mt. Pilatus) are 50% covered whether you are using a travel day or not.

Thank you for the advise Lola. So some more doubts regarding the swiss pass. I have to find out if they ship the pass to Dubai. WE are traveling to Luzern on 15th. on 16th we plan to do the Mt. Pilatus trip. On 17th we are planning to take the Golden pass to montreux. we are staying in Montreux till 19th morning. 18th palnning to visit the cheese factory and Broc chocolate factory and maybe a half day Geneva trip ( I don't know if its possible with broc in the morning and Geneva in the afternoon) and 19th morning we fly out from Geneva. So if we are not traveling on 16th just going to mt. Pilatus will it be covered as one day? so do we need a 4 day fexi pass?

Thank you very much Lola. I really appreciate your patience. Let me go through all what you have said AND figure out which would be a good choice. YesLola we r palnning to visit chateau chillon on the day we reach montreux ie on 17th. Im trying to ship the siwss pass to Dubai through rail europe and defnitely as I progress with my plans Ill need your advise and help. I thank both you and Tim for providing me some very useful tips and valuable information.

Hi Lola, I purchased the Swiss flexi saver pass today. AS per your advise I am trying to book the Milan- Arth Goldau sector. From the drop down menu I selected GA Switzerland, but only 7 spaces to enter the pass number. The Swiss fexi pass number is 8 digit. Can you please help me on this.

See the other post by Andre about trains to/from Italy Switzerland blocked by landslide for 30 days.