I'm heading out to Georgia on the Wednesday, with the match being on the Saturday I'm torn on when to head to Switzerland.

An extra night in Switzerland is working out pricey and I reckon Georgia is the nicer of the two places to be in between games but if there is barely anyone left around Tbilisi by that stage it might be worth it.

Whats everyone's plan?

Flying Kutaisi to Milan on Monday 14 October for €65 (wizzair). Flight is 16:00, landing 20:25. It's still that sort of price.

Booked a twin room in a hotel in Milan for €90 for the night (€45pp), right across from the train station.

Train to Zurich or Bern is €29, Basel or Geneva is €39, on the Tuesday; I'll book that much closer to the time.

I think we'll likely get the train from Tbilisi to Kutaisi on Sunday 13 and spend the night there. It was dirt cheap the last time we were there. Like 50c a beer cheap.

What was Kutaisi like the last time for those who were there?

An absolute sh*thole with mad taxi drivers and very few pubs. But you only need to find one and if there are a crowd of us, they'll stay open.

Not really, just making sure that my stay in Switzerland isn't too short.

It can be very frustrating when things are too short.

Am I right?

 

Stayed a night in kutaisi last time round, never been in a cheaper city, private room with ensuite at starhostel cost me €9, drank in pub barcelona for about ,.80cent a pint. National sports m is located in kutaisi too, you will need a group of ye to stay to have some sort of craic because after 9pm the place is fairly lifeless (midweek anyway).

Ouch 

GA land late Thursday leave early Monday to Basel 

Not much going on there. Is ok for a stopover but wouldn't want to be spending too much time there

So you created a thread because you couldn't make up your own mind whether your stay in Switzerland is too short? so you decide to ask random people on the internet for advice by setting a poll? are you thick?

whats next..... a thread and poll wondering is your trip too short in Gibraltar because you don't know whether to fly to Malaga or Faro and whether to rent a car or bus. 

Everyone's flight information is either in the Tbilisi thread or the Swiss thread. 

Have you decided against the Bernina express? I'm mad to see what it's like. 

I did it a couple of years ago. It is spectacular.

Also, the flight only lands in Milan the Monday evening before the match. You can't get to Basel on time on the match day (Tuesday) if you go via the Bernina Express. If you want to go that way, you'll need to fly to Milan on the Sunday. You'll probably have to get like a 6am flight though, from Tbilisi to Istanbul to Milan Bergamo, with Pegasus.

There is another option: fly from Kutaisi to Roma on the Sunday, leaving 16:00, landing 18:20. You then have a good while to get from the airport to Roma Termini (30m ride, train every 15m). Then there is a night train to Milan Porta Garibaldi station, leaving 23:55 arriving 07:12. That train is €50 for a couchette, €70 for a bed in a 3 bed compartment. That gives plenty of time to get across to Milano Centrale for the 10:10 to Tirano, arriving 12:52, giving an hour and a half for lunch before the 14:25 Bernina Express. The bus to Kutaisi leaves Tbilisi at 9am, which is a bit better than having to be at the airport for 5am for an early flight.

If you want to book it, make sure you book it from Tirano to Germany via Basel with Deutsche Bahn, even if you don't use the section beyond Basel. That is easily the cheapest way from Tirano to Basel. Also make sure you book the Bernina express, the one leaving Tirano at 14:25 direct to Chur. You can book the seat reservation for the panorama coach separately for like €15 extra. It is probably worth it.

I'd probably still go with the early morning Tbilisi - Istanbul - Milan option on the Sunday with Pegasus, a night there, then onto Switzerland on Monday via the Bernina, if you do want to do it.

Well yeah, that was the entire point of the thread before you came in here begging for attention.

Pint with the madman with the capital letters - I believe we have same criteria for Faro

Buy SD a pint because he is a legend and should have his own website. 

Grow my balls big enough to do the double header. I have the Swiss part booked up.

Think might go up to kutaisi on the 13th and spend the night their before getting the flight on the 14th

The fact that the 9am bus from Tbilisi is the only way of making it in time for that 4pm flight to Milan definitely works in favour of getting the train up from Tbilisi to Kutaisi the day before and spending the night in Kutaisi. The 17:50 train the evening before to Rioni station in at 21:10 is the plan, booking a taxi with the hotel to pick us up at the train station.

Word of advice: if you do plan to go up the day before, any train that stops at Rioni is good. However, there is literally nothing there, so make sure you book a taxi with your hotel and that they know what time the train is due in at. We did that last time and it was a good thing we did, otherwise we'd have been left standing there with only the stray dogs for company.

El Galeon is one of the few late night places in Kutaisi. It's a pirate themed place down on the river by one of the bridges.

or maybe a double life time ban well 2 months as it is on here

  

speak up there with your wannabe Dublin accent. 

the day I’m schooled by a member of Scabs of 88 and some young lad who can’t make make up his own mind that in turn has to ask some random lads on the internet will be the day I finally get to finger the queen 

good man, at least you admit your thick 

It's "you're" you absolute thick 

the email king has awoken 

Yeah will most likely take the train up the day before and stay in kutaisi for the night before flying to Milan. Stayed in kutaisi for a night last year so know what the city is like booked back into starhostel this year again

I doing the Kutasi/Milan flight so Swiss venue shouldn't make much difference, I hope :)

Yeah makes no difference, few of us on that kutaisi to milan flight too

Was going to do that, yep. Any idea how long before a journey the tickets go live online, Dave? Cheers

Two months, it seems.

There are tricksy ways to book tickets with Deutsche Bahn as well six months. For instance, you can book from a place called Singen to Geneva for €34.90 with DB, and just not use the Singen to Zurich bit. However, that is liable to be more expensive, so I wouldn't bother.

If you are coming in from Austria or Germany, you can and should book it six months out. If you are only looking for a domestic Swiss train, chances are it'll make sense to wait until 2 months out.

Thanks, appreciate it

Are those German tickets fixed to a service or can you grab any train? 

Fixed to a particular service, unless you pay the full price, which is madly expensive. The cheaper Austrian ones are train specific too, as are the cheap Swiss ones.

There are no cheap tickets that aren't train specific, tbh. If you are booking a train to get coming off a flight, add a few hours to be safe, or you'll be paying a fortune if you miss the one booked.

belt wrote: Anyone come across a decent Georgia - Switzerland route lately? The Kutaisi - Milan route has gone very expensive

Pegasus from Tbilisi to Istanbul to Geneva on Monday for about €125. Early start but not expensive. Pegasus also fly Istanbul to Basel, Zurich, Lyon, Paris and Milan, and you can get direct to Geneva from all of them for not very much, if you have an advance train ticket. Tbilisi to any of those places with Pegasus is a similar sort of price.

In terms of flights avoiding the sh*te 4:30am style Pegasus flights though, there aren't many good options left. The one I would go for would be this one with Ukraine International to Milan Bergamo via Kiev:

TBS 16:35 - 18:35 KBP 20:35 - 22:15 BGY

It is €174 to Bergamo at the minute, leaving Kiev Monday afternoon. From Bergamo to Milano Central is not much (like a fiver for the Terravision bus booked online in advance) and the train should be €40 to Geneva. A night in Milan will probably cost a fair bit less than a night in Geneva.

Yeah im on that route and the two sons want to go now too, but was almost €300 each, I paid €50' they will be travelling solo to Switzerland now. I reckon that wizz flight might drop in price again though.
 

Can fly from Tbilisi to Milan on the Monday with Aegean airline's for €98 (has a short stopover in Athens but nothing major)

Flying Tblisi to Basel, early start Monday morning but it's working out at €118 which aint bad. 

Stopover in Istanbul but into Basel at a reasonable hour. 

Just looking at a few other groups to see if any other teams got tricky away double headers (logistically speaking I mean). There are some handy enough ones. Wales have Hungary and Croatia as a double header, Spain have Norway and Sweden. Those are handy, with bordering countries and decent transport links.

The Scots got screwed though. Their double header is in March and they have to go to Kazakhstan and San Marino. Ouch.

 

Mon - wed Geneva

 

*That will be the place we avoid at all coats*

Dublin Frankfurt Geneva Zurich Dublin.

]

OK that's nine, need another 7, I'll keep you posted. 

Best book up my flight from Tbilisi to Geneva soon.

£107 Tbilisi - Istanbul - Geneva, leaving Tuesday morning (430am) and arriving 1pm.

Anything competing with that flight?

Obviously rather arrive the day before match day.

I wouldn’t be surprised if more people applied for Georgia than Switzerland yet you’ll have a lot more in Geneva than Georgia.

 

should be collection in Tbilisi for Geneva for those doing the double header

standard tickets are but the cat 1's are €81 leave them to those not doing the double header 

€27. Presuming those at €81 are half way line.

Assume there would be no issues giving them a shout and asking for the 27 ones 

Edit, just seen others charged that as well. Total with fee is €83.50 ffs 

Has to be a mistake!

Says price 10 for 2014 and 5 for 2017, assuming thats Lari so that would be about right then. Have no memory of it being thay cheap.

Ring up and get a €27 ticket. Those 81 quid tickets will be on the half way line and not the proper away end.

Huge price difference too 

Heard plenty of stories from Tbilisi trips last few years 

Have emailed them there so live in hope. Not bothering with Georgia this time round, got too much on. It is a quality place and have enjoyed both trips there previously. 

Yeah like I said previously my first time to go there and have heard great stories 

What’s their excuse this far out 

In some cases, I saw no excuses offered.

Saw 1 person complaining last week that he didnt get tickets in the euro 2020 public ballot and now hes trying to get rid of tickets for October. All about points for some people 

Are they even @ FV?

 

Even if they are, flogging them this far out (excuse or no excuse) and just a day after the invoices go out just stinks of points harvesting.  A few days out, they might have got away with it (eg family death/emergency) but as NR alludes, flogging them some 2 months in advance does raise suspicions that they had no notion of going to either game and just want the points for a high-demand away play-off or the tournament itself.

 

Any way they could be reported to the FAI? 

One guy even shamelessly admits he is getting the points from the FAI.

At least from what I have heard everyone that applied is getting a ticket albeit some paying for cat 1.

And there’s another issue. While everyone got sorted some are paying three times more possibly because people with no intentions of travelling have taken up the cheap allocation.

Surely screen shots could be sent to the FAI and they could do some "random" checks on certain people. Look for flight details etc etc

i've been away with celtic on last 2 champions league qualifiers tickets collect out there(missed sarajevo and that was the same), nothing allowed to be booked with club without seeing flight confirmation email and hotel booking 

there is always a way around these things and how would you police supporters clubs