I’d like to raise a concern about the way SBB/CFF displays ticket prices on its website and app.
By default, the prices shown are those for travelers who own a Half-Fare Card — without making this immediately obvious. This practice is misleading, especially for new or occasional users who don’t have a Half-Fare Card and may assume they are seeing the full fare.
As a result, people can easily buy tickets at the Half-Fare rate without realizing they are invalid, and later get fined. I imagine this happens quite often, and it doesn’t feel right for a state-owned company to rely on such a confusing setup.
It would be much fairer and more transparent if the default price displayed were the full fare, and users who have a Half-Fare Card could then tick a box or log in to see discounted prices.
I asked the SBB chatbot about this, and it said that many customers have a Half-Fare Card, but couldn’t confirm that they are the majority — which makes the current default even less justifiable.
Transparency should come first, especially for a public service.