Point-to-Point or Rail Pass

If you can commit to specific departure dates and times and book well in advance to get discount fares, point-to-point tickets will be cheaper than a railpass.

Because of the problem with the Trenitalia site, you probably should book the Venice-Paris night train on the Rail Europe site, even though you'll pay more. Or you could book at italiarail.com. Or you could book on tgv-europe.com, but you would have to say that you live in Italy and have the ticket mailed to an address in Italy (like your hotel in Venice). If you book a ticket on tgv-europe.com for a trip that doesn't start in France, you have to have the ticket mailed to an address in the country of departure. You cannot pick it up at the station in Venice.

If you book Paris-Koblenz well in advance (up to 92 days allowed) on the German Rail site, you can get a Europa-Spezial Frankreich Savings fare as low as 39 EUR. If you do the same for Koblenz-Basel, you can get a Europa-Spezial Schweiz Savings fare as low as 39 EUR. The cheapest tickets sell out fast so book ASAP.

Buy your tickets for travel within Switzerland when you get to Switzerland.

We were in the same situation, we could save about $20 by buying advance point to point, but for the convience we purchased the pass.

I have never tried it, but I have heard it can be difficult to book night trains online in advance so we just booked them when we arrived in the country and it worked good.

Actually, if you want to play games, you can get Koblenz to Basel for as low (effectively) as €31.

The game? Use "Basel Bad Bahnhof" as the terminus, not just Basel, which will be SBB Bahnhof in Basel. Basel Bad Bahnhof is a German Rail station entirely within Basel, Switzerland, only 11 min by tram from SBB Bahnhof. Koblenz to Basel Bad is a Sparpreis fare (from €29) instead of a Europa-Spezial fare starting at €39. The Basler Verkehrs Betriebe (BVB) fare from Bad Bhf to SBB is 3,00 chf, about €2.

In fact, if he is staying overnight in Basel, it might be that the fare to his hotel is the same from either Bahnhof.

If he is not spending a night in Basel, just changing trains, he can get the €39 Europa- Spezial fare from Koblenz all the way to Luzern. Or if he just wants to spend a few hour's stopover in Basel, he can build that into the Europa-Spezial ticket using Basel as a "Via" and the time he wants to spend there.

According to sbb.ch, Basel to Luzern is 31 CHF and Luzern to Zürich is 23 CHF, a total of 54 CHF or about $50. €39 Paris-Koblenz + €29 Koblenz-Basel is another €68 ($92) so it looks like you can do Paris-Koblenz-Basel-Luzern-Zürich for about $142. A four country, 5 day Select pass is $510; plus you would have the "reservation" cost for the night train. You could probably get the entire global night train ticket for less than $368 ($510-$142).

It looks to me like it will be a lot more for the rail pass w/ the reservation than for point-point tickets. And it will be far easier to book the entire night train online than to get a reservation alone.

Is there a reason to by Swiss tickets in Switzerland? I haven't checked to see if I can actually buy them from sbb.ch

Thanks so much for those quick replies, this is my first time to Europe, and I feel a little more relaxed about everything by the night train. Rail Europe is so much more expensive, but I guess that might be my only option for getting the ticket delivered to the US.

Thanks so much again!

Also, Tim, you mentioned ItaliaRail, and I have looked at that before. I testing booking the Artesia night train for one in the next month, and the site gave great rates with only $10 shipping.

Is there some reason why I wouldn't be able to book this train when my real booking gets within 92 days?

Point-to-point often has a big advantage over Eurail passes in that you can buy 2nd class tickets. When the prices are close, the pass is arguably best.

The convenience and flexibility of the pass is worth something, only you can decide what

Unless 1st class is important to you, you should make your price comparisons to 2nd class. Similarly, you should use the national rail sites for prices and not Rail Europe, which inflates ticket prices to make passes seem like a better deal.

Sounds as though you may know all that, just saying.

The reason I suggested buying your tickets when you get to Switzerland for your rides entirely within Switzerland is that there is no real advantage to buying them in advance. There are no discount fares and no seat reservations.

I've never booked tickets from italiarail.com, but I don't know of any reason why you shouldn't be able to book your tickets at least 90 days in advance.

Tim: I also looked at italiarail.com and found some great prices on tickets - I went all the way through to purchase to see if the seats would be assigned and it never provided that information. Would it be safe to purchase tickets on a night train and not know what seats/sleeper compartment you are assigned?

Heath,

Since a reservation is required for the Venice-Paris night train, any ticket sold for that train will have to show the carriage and sleeper assignment. So even if it doesn't show when you book, it certainly will be printed on the ticket.