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Seat61.com advice to save money on Swiss rail tix: Buy from DB & originate in Freiburg?

Posted by (New York, NY) on

I initially thought to ask this in the Switzerland forum but perhaps it is better here in the Transportation forum.

I am writing to verify from Swiss residents and anybody else who can confirm.

Let’s say I want to do a day trip within Switzerland between Basel and Grindelwald.

seat61.com offers a tip that in order to save money, buy from the Deutsche Bahn website 90 days in advance and select Freiburg as the departure and Grindelwald as the destination. The fare is €19.90. Then for the return to Basel, on the DB website enter Freiburg as the destination. Same low fare.

In both directions, Basel is a station in which to change trains. Thus seat61 advises that it is perfectly legitimate to buy tickets from the DB website using Freiburg as a departure origination in the morning and a destination in the evening. I have the DB app and would buy both through the app making the printing of tickets unnecessary.

It all seems too good to be true. Is this in fact true? Is this legitimate?

Thank you.

Posted by
6462 posts

It's legitimate except that I just purchased a similar ticket on June 11 from DB bahn and paid 4.9 euro for it to be mailed. There wasn't an option to purchase online because we are crossing too many borders. So, I'm still waiting for the tickets. Seat 61 says to allow 2 weeks and Db bahn said 10 days. DBbahn either didn't mail them or they got lost in the mail, and since I'm not going to be in Germany, there is no way for me to pick up the tickets in a DB office. It took 2 weeks for DB bahn to reply to my email. So, bear that in mind if you attempt the transaction, if you get to a point where it says the tickets need to be mailed, I'd give it some extra thought. I emailed Seat61 to let him know the problem we are having with the tickets and to please modify his site to let people know that they need to allow extra time for possible problems with the tickets. All he could offer was to call them on the phone except that it's a German phone number and I'm in the U.S. I'm not really getting anywhere with DB bahn via email. At this point, the tickets could have been back and forth to me a couple times.

This is the thread that I've got going in regards to the difficulty I am having with DB. https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/switzerland/sbb-fares

Posted by
8889 posts

Yes, perfectly legit, perfectly legal.

"In both directions, Basel is a station in which to change trains." - It is actually Basel SBB where trains to Switzerland leave from and you change trains (or start), not the other station.

@Jules, why did you opt for the ticket to be posted to you?
The default is a self-print ticket, which is a PDF file e-mailed to you. That is a lot easier (and saves €4.90).

Posted by
6462 posts

@Chris F, there is no choice for electronic ticket for this particular situation. I knew that going in, Seat 61, did have that in his instructions, except that he said it would take 2 weeks. Its now been 1 1/2 months. It is my understanding that I need a paper ticket because my route crosses so many borders--Singen to Zurich to Chur To Tirano. My guess is that its lost. The tickets are sitting there in my DB Bahn account. If I were actually going to Germany, I could pick up the tickets in a DB office, but I'm not. I'm landing in Zurich. It took DB 2 weeks to answer my email only to be told to use a different email. In my last email, I asked them to reprint and resend the tickets. Since they didn't suggest that, I have a feeling that they don't want to reissue tickets. I have plenty of time, I don't leave until October, my fear, however, is if I have to purchase different tickets, any saver ticket that might have been available is or will be gone. If I could call them, I would. I'm giving it a bit more time and then I will think about a way to phone them.

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