The Bernina Express is genuinely as scenic as the photos promise: glacier views, the Landwasser Viaduct, and the switchback climb over the Bernina Pass between Chur (or St. Moritz) and Tirano in Italy. What surprised us was how little of that experience needed to cost full price, even sitting in the panoramic first-class carriage the whole way.
We travelled as tourists, not residents, and the single decision that made the trip affordable was buying an SBB Half Fare Card before we set off. Start with our Visiting Switzerland planning hub if you are still comparing passes, saver tickets and flexible travel.
Watch the journey
Here is our own footage from the ride, including the viaducts and the Alp Grüm stretch:
The Half Fare Card pays for itself faster than you’d think
The card that Swiss residents know as the Halbtax is also sold to visitors in a version built for a single trip. If your permanent residence is outside Switzerland or Liechtenstein, you can buy the Swiss Half Fare Card for CHF 150, valid for one full calendar month, rather than the resident version that renews every year. It gives the same up to 50% off most trains, buses, boats, mountain railways and panorama trains, including the Bernina Express base fare.
Here is the arithmetic that actually matters, using Chur to Tirano as the example: a standard second-class one-way ticket on this route is around CHF 66. With the Half Fare Card, that drops to about CHF 33. Do the same return journey and you have already saved roughly CHF 66 on the ticket alone, before counting a single other train, bus or tram ride elsewhere in the country during the same month. That is the detail worth planning around: the card’s value is not really about one train, it is about every fare you pay for the rest of your trip once you are holding it.
One cost the card will not touch is the seat reservation. The Bernina Express requires a compulsory seat reservation in its panoramic carriages, charged in addition to the ticket and at the same rate for first and second class: roughly CHF 44 per person each way in high season (2 May to 25 October) and CHF 40 in low season. This supplement is paid in full by every passenger, Half Fare Card or not, so it is worth budgeting separately rather than assuming the 50% discount covers the whole ticket.
Why we still chose first class
First-class base fares run around 60 to 70% higher than second class, but with the Half Fare Card halving that base fare, the gap in francs actually paid narrows a lot. The panoramic windows are the same design in both classes, but first class is quieter and has more legroom for a journey that runs close to four hours end to end, and for us that difference was worth the smaller remaining gap once the discount applied.
Reserve early, especially around the scenic months
Seat reservations sell out on the popular departures, particularly in the warmer months when day-trippers from St. Moritz and Lugano fill the panoramic carriages. Booking your specific date and departure time as soon as you have decided on it protects both the seat you want and, occasionally, a lower fare bracket that disappears as a departure fills up.
When to go for the views
The Bernina Express runs all year and the scenery holds up in every season, but if snow is what you are after, winter (December to February) is genuinely the strongest case: snow-covered peaks, frozen stretches near the Bernina Pass, and noticeably thinner crowds than summer. The trade-off is daylight. Trains later in the day can run into darkness on the final stretch, so if you are travelling in winter, take the earliest reasonable departure to keep the whole route in daylight.
Our checklist, in order
- Confirm you qualify for the tourist Half Fare Card (permanent residence outside Switzerland/Liechtenstein) before assuming the CHF 150, one-month version applies to you.
- Buy the Half Fare Card before your other Swiss travel, not just before the Bernina Express, so the saving compounds across the trip. Families should also check the current child-travel rules before booking.
- Book your seat reservation as soon as your date is fixed; it is compulsory and not discounted.
- Decide first versus second class based on the narrowed gap after the Half Fare discount, not the full-price difference.
- If chasing snow, pick a winter morning departure to avoid finishing the route in the dark.
Related Expat Money guides
Sources
- SBB, Swiss Half Fare Card for guests from abroad, price and eligibility: www.sbb.ch/en/offers/swiss-half-fare-card
- SBB, Half Fare Travelcard (resident version), pricing: www.sbb.ch/en/offers/half-fare-travelcard
- RhB (Rhaetian Railway), Bernina Express panoramic journeys and seat reservation terms: www.rhb.ch/en/panoramic-journeys/bernina-express
- Seat61, Bernina Express 2026 schedules, fares and reservation charges: www.seat61.com/trains-and-routes/bernina-express.htm
- MySwissAlps, Bernina Express 2026 route and ticket guide: www.myswissalps.com/activity/bernina-express/