Train Passes
 

Greetings,
We will be traveling to Basel,Lucerne, Wengen and then Berne and back home next July.(July 6 to 21)
Which train pass do you recommend? What has been your experience?
Thanks so much.
Evelyn

Your not training enough nearly for a Swiss Pass to pay off. Once in Berner Oberland area around Wengen, Interlaken, etc., consider the Regional Pass which would cover many cable cars, trains, etc., if you plan to do enough of those. Otherwise just buy point-point tickets once there.

Hi eg,

If you enter your itinerary at www.railsaver.com they will tell you if you need a railpass.

Be sure to click "only if it saves me money"

try doing a search here for swiss pass or swiss train pass, or just the swiss section of the forum. There is a lot of good information on what can be a very complicated subject.

iN YOUR CASE IT'S NOT COMPLICATED AT ALL you don't even come close to making a Swiss Pass pay off, not nearly.

Thank you all.
Evelyn

What about the half-fare card? You pay 99chf for the card, then get 1/2 off each trip. You could do the computation yourself, using the www.sbb.ch website, or could e-mail them and see if they could tell you if it would pay to buy the card.

Enjoy!

Definitely purchase the Swiss Half Fare Card for one month. Will save you a lot of money. No calculation necessary given your itinerary - as long as you are doing day trips from your destinations (and I suppose you will do, especially from Lucerne/Wengen) using mountain railways, cable cars, ferries.

I.

About Swiss Card...it gives you a round-trip from any airport or border town (Basel) to any place in Switzerland to be complete in one day and via the most direct route, though there can be minor exceptions to this. Unfortunately you arn't going round trip to your first destination but it does give 50% off nearly everything else for a month. Thus it could benefit you even if you don't use the round-trip. But also investigate the Berner Oberland Regional Pass if you are doing lots of cables, trains, etc. in Wengen area as it gives some free days and some 50% discounted days, including trains to Bern and Lucerne. But you have to be taking expensive cables, not hard, for this to pay. If you go the Swiss Card route note that they are currently significantly cheaper in the US than in Switzerland right now due to the fall of the dollar. ($166 1st class here, $124 second class; i've checked www.sbb.ch Swiss Rail web site and they cost quite a bit more there). RailEurope sells these though they charge a $15 handling fee - i go thru Budget Europe, who sells RailEurope products but won't charge the $15 if you order early enough (800-441-9413); ask for the superb European Rail & Planning Guide that contains lots of info on the Grindelwald-Lauterbrunnen-Wengen area.