Need help booking a train from Weil am Rhein, Dreiländr to Malters Switzerland

ALittleLostMom47

I am an American (forgive me) and not familiar with booking public transport like trains. I have been using the SBB website to try and book passage from Weil am Rhein, Dreiländerbrücke (nearest to our hotel) to Malters Bahnhof, Switzerland in May. If I try to book that specific course (starting point in Germany), I get a tariff error. If I adjust the starting point to Weil am Rhein, Basel Grunze (about 2-3 blocks from our hotel, starting point in Switzerland), then it will give me a price and allow me to go through checkout. However, after I enter my credit card, it gives me an error that the card is not accepted (has been rejected). I have cleared the charge with my credit card company (and there is no problem with the funds) but even after multiple attempts (and even at different times of the day) I cannot get the reservation to completion. I am lost as to what I am doing wrong.

We are not purchasing train passes due to the extra expense (there are 5 of us travelling together) and because we will be utilizing very few train rides, so we are only selecting point-to-point tickets.

Please help me discover what I am missing so I may complete my reservation.

Thank you so much for your help.

RolandP

Hello ALittleLostMom47

Good day.

SBB is accepting credit cards that have the 3D secure ID activated. It is most likely a Chase credit card…

You can also purchase the ticket using Deutsche Bahn, they are less picky: https://int.bahn.de/en/

There is a technical issue with the stop ‘Weil am Rhein, Dreiländerbrücke’. Neither Deutsche Bahn nor SBB can issue a ticket from that stop. If you use the ‘Weil am Rhein, Basel Grenze’ stop, it also works on the Deutsche Bahn website.

In Europe, we do use the term ‘reservation’ for purchasing a train ticket. Because a ticket and a seat reservation are two different things here. When you say, I reserve a train, it actually means, you reserve a seat on that train. And, domestic train tickets do not offer seat reservations. We simply purchase a regular train ticket for a route, and take the next train to come.

Read here:

https://community.sbb.ch/blog/23887-demystifying-seat-reservations-on-swiss-trains-a-comprehensive-guide

For children, you could purchase the Children Day Pass or the Junior Card. Both pay off also with a few train trips only (however, staying in Malters (where you probably have an AirBnB), I wondered how you will commute between the sites if not by public transport).

Kind regards,
Roland

ALittleLostMom47

RolandP Thank you again for your help in this matter. Your reply prompted me to do some more research on getting Eurail global passes for all of us instead of trying to book individual point-to-point tickets. The global pass is very expensive, but based on what you said, we will probably be using the trains more than we expect (instead of just transporting us between countries), making the global pass a wiser option.

We are planning a 15 day trip starting in Paris, going through Germany and Switzerland, and ending in Milan.

So if we purchase a Eurail global pass for each of us, does that mean that the pass acts as a pre-paid ticket for any of our destinations between Paris and Milan (not including the special scenic trains that require seat reservations)? Meaning we can show up at any train station and use our pass to reserve a ticket to the next destination without incurring any additional fees? For instance - we can hop on any local train, say from Malters to Luzern and the pass covers the fee. Or even the route in my original question of Basel to Malters?

I just want to make sure that if I buy the global pass, we won’t run into the global pass just being a discount card and we still have to pay ticket prices on top of the pass (like the Swiss half-fare card that acts like a discount card instead of a full pass).

Many thanks for your expertise. 🙂

ALittleLostMom47

That is very helpful – thank you so much for your reply. I will use those tips and try again this afternoon. Many thanks. 🙂

Krist

Note that this is mass transit. This is like taking a subway or a bus in a big US city. There is no need to buy these tickets in advance. One reason you are running in to issues is because you are trying to do something that no local would do: Book this a month in advance.
Most of the people you will share that Tram with will have bought the ticket just before travel, or will have a pass.

ALittleLostMom47

Oh I see – that makes a lot of sense. Thank you so much! 🙂

Danhiel

Hello > ALittleLostMom47 Meaning we can show up at any train station and use our pass to reserve a ticket to the next destination without incurring any additional fees?

You need mandatory reservations on some trains, e.g. TGV in France or Eurocity to Milan. You will find a reservations guide here:

https://www.seat61.com/interrail-and-eurail-reservations.htm

ALittleLostMom47 For instance - we can hop on any local train, say from Malters to Luzern and the pass covers the fee. Or even the route in my original question of Basel to Malters?

Eurail Passes are not valid everywhere in Switzerland, you can find an area of validity map here:

https://www.interrail.eu/content/dam/_new-structure/doc/res/sbb_validity_map_2026.pdf

You could buy a Flexi Pass and use a travel day for long distance journeys and buy tickets for short journeys.

Kind regards
Danhiel

ALittleLostMom47

Danhiel thank you so much for your reply! That is very helpful. I will check out the Flexi Pass and the validity map you provided. 🙂