There’s a public service component to SBB, it’s not just about profit.
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Train is one of those services where the marginal cost is low: having an additional passenger on the train does not cost the SBB much. The intent of this marketing offer is clearly to incite people to use the train more often: if you spend for 700 CHF per year on train… maybe you force yourself to spend an extra 100 to be able to unlock the 200 bonus. This benefits SBB, profit wise.
No evil forces at play, just reality. My hunch: due to increase in home office, many people cancelled their GA or annual subscriptions. And once one needs to buy a single ticket, you might take the car for that trip, instead.
There was customer and political demand for SBB to cover the gap between the all-inclusive GA and very flexible single tickets in their offering, to incentivize frequent use.
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But they don’t seem to be doing much on enabling it on the “physical level” - rush hour trains are jam packed already.
The fact that travelcards are excluded from this offer is annoying. Depending on the job I get, it can be cheaper for me to take a monthly AG or travelcard.
So I would have to calculate if the travel cards is cheaper that full price with a potential return…
For people in Valais/Wallis, the pilot project 13* pass follows a similar logic, except with lower amounts (CHF 160 unlocking 200.- of public transportation tickets and CHF 375 unlocking 500.-).
Except it uses the 3rd party app FAIRTIQ, which works by tracking its user. It’s a barrier for me but may not be for other people.
only within the geographic limits of the canton, correct?
Correct, it’s piloted by the cantonal Service of mobility (in charge of roads and transportation). If your course takes you out of the canton, FAIRTIQ will bill you that part but it won’t benefit from the “free” credit scheme.
You also cant buy a normal Halbtax and use it to get a GA for half price.
The offer is not like a voucher, its a prepaid ticket, like the GA.
The “half fare” or Halbtax brand quite the misnomer, honestly, when these products don’t nearly halve your actual fares (whether you have a proper Halbtax or not). Even though… seee last paragraph.
Which seems the most intuitive thing anyway, once you’ve used up your bonus credit. But less be beforehand. Bottom line: get the plan closest to your yearly expenditure - but plan not to let any bonus credit expire.
I do believe this was intended to encourage transit use, not discourage it by raising prices.
That said, they’ve basically done just that with the current Halbtax and fares:
Zürich - Winterthur is CHF 13.40 for a 20min ride, Zürich - Berne 53 for one hour of a ride.
On a “regular” fare. One way, return tickets would be twice these amounts.
If you’re using public transport even sporadically, they’re almost “forcing” you to buy a Halbtax - or prebook a saver ticket.
I still don’t understand this offer, although I haven’t dig enough.
If I buy it, do I have to additionally buy normal Half-Fare to profit from half-price on train tickets? YES!
But even if it is included: let me do some calculations.
Say I am traveling Bern-Zürich 3 days per working week. Price with a half-fare is 26.5 CHF one way. Return trip 3 times per week, 40 weeks, I end up with 6360 CHF per year just to go to work. GA costs 3800 CHF per year. WTF?
I guess for shorter regular trips a yearly local abonnement for public transport will also beat this offer.
So, what’s the use case? Very irregular long trips by public transport? Maybe. But then it is the same problem as with all prepaid credits: you can’t really know how much you will use. I think they realize it, that’s why there is a money back guarantee.
So for now my conclusion is: go for it if any abonnement is not worth it for you:
- Very irregular long trips
- Using the public transport only during the weekend.
And you reach the corresponding amount per year, i.e. 1k, 2k, 3k.
Otherwise keep as it is.
Yep, that’s me.
I commute by bicycle.
I use public transport for
- leisure outings (cycling, hiking, snow stuff, camping, concerts)
- visiting friends & family
- to/from airport
I pulled the payment details from my Reka account and SBB expenses was a little over Fr 1000 in 2022 and 2023 (excl. Halbtax), so the Fr 1000 one is what I’ll go for.
Funny is, it’s 2023, and they haven’t got an online purchasing possibility* up and running yet 
so if I want it for the upcoming Xmas / NYs trips, I have to go to a station with a Reisezentrum
*i believe they will make online purchasing possible soon, just not ready yet.
PS I don’t have Reka any more, so I’ll be paying with my Certo credit card and get Fr 8 cashback 
PS there’s a few comparison tables around of when it possibly makes sense or not for different users:
https://www.sbb.ch/de/billette-angebote/abos/halbtax-plus/beispiele-use-cases.html
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I’m in a similar boat, WFH for 3-4 days per week, and go to work by bicycle (or bus when it rains 
). Apart from that mainly longer trips on weekends,
When you commute for work and travel in-between different zones and work in home office or not at all. Let’s say round-trip to work is 8 CHF, yearly ticket for that trip is 1’500. Travel to other destinations are 500.
250 days per year to work site:
- single tickets + others = 2500
- yearly ticket + others = 2000
- GA = 3800
Yearly ticket is worth it, GA is not.
100 days per year to work site:
- single tickets + others = 1300
- yearly ticket + others = 2000
- GA = 3800
Yearly ticket is not worth it anymore. Chances are you take the car half of the time instead of the single ticket to work. - single ticket 50% + others = 900 (plus cost of car)
New offer:
- pay 800 for Halbtax plus 1000 and 300 additional = 1100 spent instead of 1300 or 900
Example works better if you just hit one of the treshholds, of course.
EDIT: The link from rolandinho provides some use cases, already
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(Often) not if “regular” is just two to three times a week, over a shorter distance - which is exactly what many people are doing today (definitely an increased number since COVID).
If the goal were to encourage the use of public transportation vs. private vehicles, there would be much more effective ways to do that. A GA for 2000 francs, for example, would be extremely effective in that regard. The strategy taken with Half Fare Plus seems to have more to do with pushing customers to use digital (which makes sense for cost saving), and pushing customers to prepaid (lower financing costs for SBB). But that’s just my observation.
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For me this is an interesting offer. I commute by bike but I spent about 100 CHF on trains a month. My trips are all over, a ride to see my mom (CHF 26) per month, a couple of trips by tram (around CHF 7 per day) and zurich-olten or zurich-bern every two months or so.
I don’t have a car and none of these trips justify any of the abos.
My other half also will buy this as she works three days a week to three different places…
thanks to using fairtiq, we have very good quality data which package to choose. I’ll get the 800 CHF and I have to switch to easyride until fairtiq supports the usage of half fare plus credit.
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I see online purchasing (as opposed to in-person at Reisezentrum/rail station) is now available (wasn’t yet last week).
https://www.sbb.ch/de/billette-angebote/abos/halbtax-plus/angebot.html
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Isnt easyride basically fairtiq included in the SBB app ? (I saw somewhere powered by fairtiq).
I also saw ‘powered by fairtiq’ a couple of months ago.
My experience with the fairtiq customer service is excellent and I really don’t think that SBB is similar. OTOH I can’t pay Fairtiq with my cashback amex until now. But I’ll get the halbtax plus credit with cashback and then I’ll pay fairtiq from ther