Hello Loadeepi75
As a general saying:
If you activate a Swiss Travel Pass Flex on the day you travel on the Glacier Express in 1st or 2nd class, the pass is fully valid. You only need to buy an additional seat reservation in the corresponding travel class. No other ticket is required.
Your case is different, though. You booked the Glacier Express Excellence Class, and this changes things:
- The Excellence Class package already includes all train tickets for the Glacier Express journey.
- It also includes a Swiss Half Fare Card (valid for the rest of your stay).
Therefore, you do not need to use or activate a Swiss Travel Pass Flex day for the Glacier Express journey itself.
What about the remaining days in Switzerland?
How many days will you be travelling in Switzerland in total?
For all days outside the Glacier Express journey, you can simply use the complimentary Swiss Half Fare Card. With it, you can buy:
- point‑to‑point tickets at 50% discount, or
- Saver Day Passes at half fare.
In this situation, a Swiss Travel Pass Flex is usually not needed.
What should you do now?
Speaking from my experience as a ticket inspector:
The Swiss Travel Pass Flex really only makes financial sense in the 15‑day version.
Shorter Flex passes are comparatively overpriced. For shorter stays, the combination of:
- Swiss Half Fare Card, plus
- individual tickets (point‑to‑point or Saver Day Passes at half fare)
is usually cheaper and perfectly sufficient.
That said, the Swiss Travel Pass (Flex) does have one clear advantage:
You don’t have to bother about ticket purchases at all. For some travelers, this convenience alone is worth the extra cost.
From a purely financial standpoint, however, a Swiss Travel Pass (Flex) only pays off if you would otherwise spend at least the same amount on individual tickets as the price of the activated pass days. To know this, you have to price out your trips using www.sbb.ch/en.
I hope I was able to bring some light into the dark.
Kind regards,
Roland