How much in advance to book Swedish train tickets to get lowest prices?

6/25/2016 7:10:49 PM

I doubt that you will get a complete and trustworthy answer unless an employee from SJ decides to answer here and publish confidential information about their pricing strategy. Nevertheless, perhaps some of my observations can be of some help.

One unusual thing about the SJ ticket pricing is that even the price of refundable tickets vary depending on demand. If you buy a full-price, refundable ticket from German Railways for an ICE from Berlin to Hamburg, you will e.g. pay 78€ no matter what. On an SJ train, the price for a refundable ticket may vary so much, that it might be cheaper to buy a refundable ticket well in advance, than buying a non-refundable ticket on short notice.

Just to mention an example, here are the current ticket prices for the X2000 service from Stockholm to Gothenburg at 12:29 tomorrow and on three other Sundays in the future:

Date       fixed   changeable   refundable
------------------------------------------ 
Jun 26      836         931         1100 
Aug 14      299         394          777 
Aug 28     1135        1177         1279 
Sep 18      299         394          777

As you can see based on the much higher prices for the train on August 28th, the price is not only based on how long in advance you are booking, but obviously also on estimated or real demand. Assuming that the refundable tickets for the trains on June 26 and August 28th were also initially priced at 777 SEK, it would have been cheaper to buy refundable tickets for those trains when they were made available for booking, than to wait and buy the ‘cheap’ tickets now.

SJ also offers last-minute tickets, but only for youths (up to 25yo) and students. For the 12:29 train tomorrow, last-minute tickets are currently available for 477 SEK.

6/25/2016 6:44:33 PM

The cheapest tickets are released 90 days before departure, so that’s when you should start looking.

The cheapest tickets on the X2000 and SJ 3000 servives cost SEK 195, while for InterCity Train it’s usually SEK 95.

X2000+SJ 3000 are all-reserved, so if all places sell out there’ll be no more tickets

May I ask what route(s) you’re doing?

Credit:stackoverflow.com‘

About me

Hello,My name is Aparna Patel,I’m a Travel Blogger and Photographer who travel the world full-time with my hubby.I like to share my travel experience.

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