Tickets from Zurich airport to Zurich railway station

PKY

I want to purchase tickets from Zurich airport to Zurich railway station, but these appear to be limited to a one-hour ‘slot’, after which they become invalid. Although I know when I will arrive at Zurich airport, I have no idea how long it will take to get through customes, etc, so don’t wish to be restricted in time this way. Is there a ticket that I can purchase that will be valid for longer than one hour?

RedBaron

PKY
Why don’t you simply buy the ticket AFTER going through customs, like everyone else?

PKY

RedBaron Of course i COULD do that, but I want to avoid the hassle of having to buy the tickets on the day! I have already been able to buy tickets online from Zurich HB to Lucerne HB that are valid all day - it seems bizarre that I cannot also purchase in advance similar tickets for the first part of my journey.

RedBaron

PKY
What’s the hassle of buying a ticket at a vending machine or in the SBB Mobile app, compared to the lack of paperwork at airport immigration/customs when arriving in Switzerland in comparison to other countries such as US, Singapore or even - heaven forbid - Australia?

Anyway, within local fare networks covering shorter distances in Switzertland, you get a zone-based ticket, as opposed to the Zurich-Luzern point-to-point ticket (longer distance / different fare networks) which is valid the entire day.
Single journey zone tickets in the ZVV network (around Zurich) are valid between 1-2h depending on the number of zones/covered distance, while return journey tickets are valid 24h.

Therefore, if you don’t mind the double price, simply buy a return journey ticket instead of a single journey one..

PKY

RedBaron Thanks. We actually want return tickets, but it seems to be assumed that we want to return within 24 hours, whereas we are travelling out on a Monday and returning the following Saturday. Of course we can buy them on the day - it just seems strange not to be able to buy the equivalent of a Point to Point for that part of the journey.

Krist

If you are going to Luzern after landing you should not buy a separate ticket from the airport to HB and one from HB to Luzern. You should just buy a ticket Zurich Airport to Luzern.

RedBaron

PKY
The terms “single” or “return” journey may be misleading with zone tickets, maybe “short term” and “long term” would be better. Because even with a “single journey” zone ticket, you could ride back and forth as many times as you want within the specified zones and the validity period. So with your 1h ZRH Airport - ZRH City ticket (zones 110 and 121), you could manage to travel back and forth about 3 times during that time, since there are roughly 9-10 trains per hour on that stretch.

Maybe => this excellent article will help understanding further.

Krist

The advantage of the ZVV tariff is that your ticket is also valid on all other public transit. So you can use that ticket not just to get from the Airport to Zurich HB, but also to continue by tram or bus to your actual final destination. This integration, this “one ticket for everything” is convenient. But that requires a bit different approach than long distance travel. As a result for local travel the tariff is based on “time and space”, whereas the long distance travel is still based on distance. That is changing as the plan is to go to a Zone based system for the whole country.

Buying a ticket from a ticket vending machine is pretty straightforward. And there is one in the luggage retrieval area, so you can buy your tickets while waiting for your luggage. That is how I used to do it before SBB made it so convenient to buy tickets using your phone.

PKY

Thanks everyone. In the end it was simpler to get a refund on the tickets I had and to then buy point-to-point tickets from Zurich airport to Lucerne!