Snail: Yeh it may well have been mine because after dealing with BETS for years myself i always highy recommend them as they will take so much time to answer questions, etc. and have personal experience from years of rail travel themselves. I originally read about their European rail guide in Frommer's Budget Europe magazine as one of their Best 100 Travel Sources or some such thing. glad you found the same excellence!

Swiss Passes, new in 2006, also act as a Swiss Museum Pass, valid for free entry at over 400 museums, including such pricey ones as the Ballenberg Open-Air Museum near Brienz and Interlaken, the Olympic Museum in Lausanne and the Swiss Transport Museum in Lucerne.
However the literature i'm referencing does not indicate whether these museums are free only on days you activate your pass for travel, or, in the case of a flexipass, for the whole one-month period - something else to track down as free museums for a month would be a great perk.

PalQ,

I mentioned these new reductions of the Swiss Pass in a thread a few weeks ago. Seems you missed it.

The German version of the SBB website says that you get the free entrance in museums only on days when the Flexi Pass is activated.

Ingo: thanks for the response and i did miss your informative post. That the museum benefit is good only on the day of actual travel use of a flexi day lessens its worth of course but is still a good perk. You can use the Swiss Pass to go from say Grindelwald or Wengen to Interlaken via boat to Brienz then free entry to the pricey Ballenberg Open-Air Museum and rail back to Grindelwald or Wengen for example.

Ingo - hope you don't mind me copying for Jan 27 thing of Swiss Rail News for the benefit of others who may have missed it

Date: 01/27/2006, 02:34 pm
Hi folks,

I am just back home from the Dresden Travel Fair, where I got a good dose of virtual Switzerland travelling (beside some cheese + wine)

What caught my eye is that with the Swiss Pass from this year on you get a reduction of 50% on the mountain railways/cable cars, not only 25%. This makes it even more a bargain. In addition, the Swiss Pass is also a "Swiss Museum Pass" - about 400 museums all over Switzerland give free entrance for the Swiss Pass travellers. See www.museumspass.ch for details.

By the way, we also had discussions here on sending luggage with Swiss Railways. The newest information is that you can send your luggage as "Schnelles Reisegepäck" (fast travel luggage?) between 45 destinations in Switzerland and they guarantee it will arrive the same day. Cost is 20 Sfr. per piece. www.sbb.ch/baggage (German, don't know the website of the English version)
Happy travels in Switzerland!
thanks ingo
(Click on Ingo to read dozens of great things about Switzerland from this Swiss travel expert - not only trains but hiking, etc.)

PalQ, no I don't mind. Your comment is too nice - I am flattered ;-)

I think we are doing a good teamwork here responding to (not only) Switzerland threads.