Swiss Travel Pass Flex. Hope these questions make sense.

Denlaw55

I bought an 8 day first class flex pass today and I have so many questions.
My wife and I traveling Feb 16th to 24th. Coming from Paris leaving to Rome.
I think I activate my pass for a day I am traveling, reserve my seat and
show up at the train and show the QR code I generated.

Example the Glacier express Zermatt to St Moritz. I reserve 2 first class seats for February 23rd. Pay for the seats. Generate a QR code for the 23rd and show that to agent at train.

Coming from Paris to Lucerne I cannot use flex path since leaving from France?

I can do all this ahead of time and store the QR codes to show.

Best place to make reservations is the SSB app. It will also Allow me to just reserve seats and not pay? I don’t see anywhere where it asks about a flex pass.
Thanks

Dennis

RolandP

Hello Denlaw55

From my perspective, the Swiss Travel Pass Flex is rarely a suitable offer. Often, a regular ticket would be totally sufficent, even in your case.

The use of a Swiss Travel Pass Flex makes sense if the regular ticket costs more than CHF 87, what is the equivalent of a STP Flex day.

Basel to Lucerne, however, the the regular ticket in 1st class costs CHF 62, thus you are paying CHF 25 on top when using the Swiss Travel Pass Flex for that journey. In Lucerne, buses are free of charge within zone 10 of the local public transit network if you hold a hotel reservation or the visitor card that you can download. There is no need for the STP Flex.

Often, the Swiss Half Fare Card (CHF 120) plus individual tickets is the most effective and inexpensive solution in particular if you do not need the museum pass.

Kind regards,
Roland

Tafunge25

I hope I can answer your questions:

In Switzerland, you do not need a seat reservation for most trains. There are a few exceptions (for example the Glacier Express!). A valid ticket is enough; so you don’t need to buy/reserve anything more than activate your travel pass flex.
For the Glacier Express, you need to buy a seat reservation which also includes the surcharge for the panoramic train. Note that you can also do the exact same journey in local trains: With interchanges in Brig, Andermatt, Disentis and Reichenau-Tamins you get the same view for much cheaper.
For the international Journey, you can use the Swiss Travel Pass on the Swiss part of your journey: You will need to buy a ticket Paris - Basel SBB (I assume you take the most sentical route) and can use the swiss travel pass between Basel SBB and Luzern. For leaving towards Rome, you can buy a ticket starting from the last stop of your train within the validity of the Swiss Travel Pass. This could be either Lugano or Chiasso (When travelling via Gotthard) or Domodossola (When travelling via Simplon).
You should reserve ahead of time in case you do want to take the Glacier Express. Otherwise, yes, you can keep a screenshot or a printout of the activated ticket, but it might be more sentical to only activate it on the actual day; what if you were to get sick or plans change on the last minute?.
You should be able to select ‘Seat reservation only’ (‘Nur Sitzplatzreservierung’) when it comes to selecting which kind of ticket to buy.