I also have had difficulty buying my train pass on line. The other day, I went through Rick Steves'/Rail Europe site and thought that I had purchased a 3 day Swiss Flex Pass. Within a few minutes, I received a confirmation of my order for 2 3-day Swiss Flex Passes and a Swiss Family Pass and was instructed that I would receive my tickets within 2 business days via email. Those 2 days went by and nothing arrived. Then I received this weird email that had the same basic info as the confirmation email I had received arrived; it was weird because it was approximately 75 pages long and there were NO tickets attached. So I waited another day. Nothing. So I wrote to the return address, which was "Swiss Electronic." I received a quick response that my tickets had been sent. I wrote back telling them that they indeed had not. Then they sent three passes, all in my wife's name (i'e' the same ticket!). So I wrote back again and they said that they had indeed sent them, but they were still problems. So this time I went to the 1-800 number listed on the email and spoke to a customer assistance person. They then sent the tickets and all was well, BUT the operator told me that they were NOT 3-day Flex Passes, but 3 Day Passes and they would start on 5 July and end on 7 July. I could not believe it, as this will change our trip quick dramatically as we are planning on visiting some of the high mountain sites and weather is a really important part of these trips, as there is no reason in going up to the mountains if it is foggy. The operator said there was nothing he could do. The only option is to cancel the 3 day pass, pay a 22% fee (not 15% as the web site says) and then buy what is now a much more expensive 3 day Flex Pass (because it is closer to the time of travel now). In the end, it will be about 50% more costly than what I had budgeted. The customer service operator transferred me over to another customer service line, where I waited for 2 hours on hold. I finally gave up. I feel powerless and frustrated by this terrible occurrence. I'm not sure what I should do and feel quite powerless. So be warned that there seems to be lots of places that train passes can be messed up when buying on line. When I told my Swiss friends about this, they were really disappointed. I have really grown to trust the work that Rick Steves does, but there are many, many places where these way overly complicated train web sites and systems can go wrong. I hope this is the only foul up on this upcoming trip my family and I run into!
