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A positive Covid test is not enough for public transport to reimburse a ticket. A doctor must confirm: “unable to travel”.
A young woman buys an SBB supersaver ticket to go to a concert in Geneva. The day before departure, a corona self-test is positive, which is confirmed by a PCR test the next day. According to federal regulations, the woman must be isolated. Going to the concert has been cancelled. She applies to SBB to refund her ticket.
The response from SBB customer service is negative: “So that we can reimburse you for the saver ticket due to a Covid illness, send us a doctor’s certificate confirming your inability to travel on the day of travel.” And the test result that was sent in says: “We cannot consider a positive test result or an isolation quarantine order.”
Customer: “Totally pointless rule.”
The young woman can’t believe it: “It makes absolutely no sense to me. You can’t leave the house in isolation.” And if you still have to go out for an urgent doctor’s visit, for example, you should avoid public transport, writes the Federal Office of Public Health on its website.
For the SBB customer, these federal regulations are equivalent to an inability to travel. So why should she have this confirmed by a doctor? “Since the SBB belongs to the federal government, this is simply unacceptable for me,” she says, “I don’t understand how I should have traveled there.”
The industry organization is responsible for tariffs and reimbursement rules in public transport Alliance Swiss Pass. Media spokesman Thomas Ammann explains the regulation, which is why a positive PCR test or an isolation order are not sufficient for reimbursement: “This corresponds to the tariff regulations of the Alliance Swisspass. According to these, it is only possible to reimburse a supersaver ticket if the inability to travel has been confirmed by a doctor.”
Public transport companies were more accommodating until recently
Strictly speaking, this may be true. But until mid-February, public transport customers with a positive Covid test were reimbursed for supersaver tickets. When the Federal Council lifted almost all Covid measures on February 16, this also meant the end of this goodwill solution, explains Thomas Ammann. But: The Federal Council did not abolish the obligation to isolate. The Alliance Swisspass spokesman admits: “It was certainly not the most customer-friendly and best decision we have made in recent months.” It would have been more expedient to let the reimbursement of supersaver tickets continue until the obligation to isolate was also lifted. That would have been the case this Friday.
It is interesting what Thomas Ammann also notes: “There is always the possibility of being accommodating in a specific case. The counter staff has the competence to reimburse these tickets in individual cases. » To put it plainly: the SBB customer service could have paid the young woman back for her supersaver ticket easily and unbureaucratically. A question of tact.