I have tried everything to activate my Half Fare Card

Phooleefou52

I purchased a HF card for myself and my husband, on the sbb.ch website. I have the email and have printed out the HF cards. In the SBB app, I clicked on my co-passenger (my husband) and was able to click on HF Card for him so when I attempt to purchase a ticket, under his name, the half fare comes up. However, for the life of me I can not figure out how to add it for myself. I’ve read through all of the discussion that say to go to my profile, and add it but I’ve checked through all the options that come up (Personal Details, Co-passenger, payment method, notifications, etc), and I see no place to add mine. So, when I try to buy a ticket for both of us, it charges me full fare for mine and half fare for his. I click on the pencil and there is no option at all to check the half fare box. It just shows my name, date of birth, and says “There are no travelcards currently on your SwissPass”. It has an option to manually enter a travel card but then brings me to a page where I need a customer number. On the app, if I go down to the QR code icon, I DO see the HF card for each of us, with a QR code on each of those HFC. I truly don’t understand what I’m doing wrong here. What I did now (and this could be totally wrong), in order to get the half fare under my name as well, is to enter myself as a co-passenger. Then, with each ticket purchase, it seems like I have to choose who is traveling and now I have 3 options: My name with no travel card, his name and it says he has a HFC, and my name again which shows I have a HFC. What in the world am I doing wrong here? I’ve been trying to figure this out for a few hours. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Phooleefou52

By the way, I did purchase both HFC’s on the website, using my SwissPass login that I also use on the app. And, if I try to buy a ticket ONLY for him I can buy it at half fare but if I try to buy one ONLY for me, I don’t get the option for the half fare.

Phooleefou52

One more edit to my post: I’ve read to click on my profile and then go to Settings. When I click on my profile I do not have an option that says settings (unless I am just not seeing that). I have an optoin that says “Settings for ticket purchases” which just has the options to turn on for: Purchase under CHF 40, Face ID, and Wallet. And, I have an option in my profile that say “Other Settings” which only allows me to activate EasyRide. Where exactly do I find “Settings”? I am so sorry to be a pain. I am really lost with this

Danhiel

Hello Phooleefou52

What kind of card did you buy?

A Swiss Half Fare Card for tourists valid one month or a Half Fare Travelcard for Swiss residents valid one year?

In both cases, it is not necessary to have a link with the card to buy tickets. Add the discount “Half Fare Travelcard” when you define the passengers, no check will be made if you really have this card.

Kind Regards
Danhiel

Phooleefou52

Hi Danhiel, Thank you so much for responding. I did indeed purchase the Swiss Half Fare Card for tourists, for both my husband and I.

The problem was that I was completely unable to add that discounted Half Fare Travelcard for any train rides I wanted to book. The discounted price was only available for my husband and when I got to the point of actually purchasing, it charged me the full fare. Every single time.

Hopefully this may help another tourist with a HFC who runs into the same issue. Since I was completely unable to get the half fare in the app, this is what I did:

First I logged into the sbb.ch/en website, using the same log-in as I have for the sbb app. I clicked on my name at the top of the page and then on “Profile”. From there, I went to “Personal Details” and when I scrolled down there is a section for “Discount Cards”. In there I was able to click on Half Fare Card and then “Update Travel Cards”. Immediately my HFC now shows up in the app each time I search for a ticket, and both my husband and I get the discounted (half fare) price. :-)

Danhiel

Phooleefou52

You don’t need to activate the card, simply show the printed sheet with the QR code, you can also save the mail or the PDF file on your smartphone. You must take your physical passport or identity card when you travel.

To buy tickets, define the first passenger with the discount « Half Fare Travelcard »:

Click « Add more passengers » and define the second one with the same discount:

After this, you can buy two tickets for both passengers:

For example:

Phooleefou52

Hi Danhiel, Yes, that’s what I kept trying to do, but as I said, it was not giving me any option (for myself) to add that last line “discount cards”, within the app. I basically did the same thing on the website though, so in the end it worked. out. :-)