A first world complaint here! Ths ski pass, after its activation whereby it has to be held to a reader for a few seconds, never worked well. It wouldn't work through the jacket sleeve pocket at all, and even held to the reader it would often taken 3 or smore seconds. Multiple times I had to switch gate to another reader because it wouldn't work at all. A friend I was with that day had similar issues, so I'm guessing it's a problem with the SwissPass.
Ticketcorner sent out an email a week or so reporting that the issue has been recognized and that they are working on it. They suggest that the first time you use the swiss pass on the ski day take it out of the jacket and hold it to the reader a few seconds, this correctly activates the pass (might not correctly activate if you just walk by and it only half recognizes the pass). after that it should work.
as I m not skiing this year I cant tell you if it works, but maybe just try it. the last years I always used Swiss pass with more or less sucess, dependin gon the day
I asked in some ski resorts to load the ticket on the Swisspass and they said no. Better to use one of their cards (deposit 5 CHF), less problems to be read and that the plastic of the Swisspass is quite brittle in the cold.
We've had the same experience. And have had the opportunity to compare: SwissPass vs KeyCard (with 5CHF depot) in the same resort: KeyCard works much more reliably and quickly.
If you always go to the same place, just keep your card and you can load the new pass onto the same card each trip. That way you can still take advantage of dynamic pricing and not standing in line.
Doesn't have to be the same place. Ski cards are compatible (at least I didn't figure any exceptions so far) across - at least - Switzerland.
BTW. I've also loaded a bunch of day tickets from Ticketcorner to my SwissPass. Sometimes activation (first read of the day) takes a bit, otherwise works like a charm.
Huh interesting, a friend of mine had problems with his being read the other week that was likely this too! Happy I stuck to using the old skool cards and had no issues,
unless they changed I cannot confirm this. A few years ago at least Laax, Braunwald, Lenzerheide and Klosters had different ones. And this is only in Graubuenden, I would be really surprised if in the French speaking part they used the same as in GR (it would be great of course, dont get me wrong). And Laax also 'upgraded' their cards like 5 yrs ago so the older ones dont work anymore...(yea really appreciated that *NOT*)
Exactly, why buy the ticket online and have it magically in your swisspass while getting to the ski-resort of your choice by train, when you can queue at the ticket office for 20 minutes before skiing, and 10 minutes at the end of the day to get back your depot ?
Ok, I see that people appreciate staying in the queue, full skiing experience in Switzerland must be going by car to Engelberg and enjoy a queue in every possible transportation mode, car in the higway, gondola to the Titlis and finally even by foot at the restaurant up there
At least in Engelberg there's a system where you buy your ticket, print barcode on paper, get to Engelberg, scan the barcode in the machine and the machine spits the card your ticket. Those machines have no waiting lines.
Also, if it's 1 day trip I only ski nachmittag, no lines If it's more than 1 day I have the car for the whole period.