I think you found some special offers from DB. The rail pass sites can’t accurately know a year in advance when timetables are published what might or might not be offered on a route as a special offer some time during the year, so they have to go by the normal published 2nd class fare as a point of reference. Does it help them persuade a sale to the pass? Maybe. But you’ve done your homework, so if price is the biggest factor for you, consider buying some point-to-point in places where it could save you money. Of course if you buy it ahead, the special offers usually are use-it-or-lose-it, whereas with a pass you have the flexibility to hop on/off at your leisure during each valid pass day. Have you found Railsaver.com? If will check pass+point to point to see if a combination could be better for your specific itinerary.

Also be sure to check the national rail sites for the origin and destination countries. In this case, look at NS.nl and SBB.ch. You can sometimes find even better offers this way. And… check to see if first class is on offer too. Sometimes it’s actually cheaper than 2nd class on these crazy offers.

Bahn.de is the German national rail company website. You will find standard pricing (what you’d pay at the station in Europe) and, as Don mentioned, available advance purchase specials there. Your trips both are at least partially in Germany, so you can buy tickets for them from Bahn.de, but the actual trains might be run by the Netherlands or Swiss rail companies, so it’s possible that you might find a better special fare on one of those two national rail company websites. The links to the national rail company sites are in a sticky at the top of this forum and under “transportation” on the “ travel tips” tab.

The other two sites are travel agencies. They sell tickets at “global fare” which is generally about 30% more than standard pricing. Travel agencies do seem to push rail passes, although I’d guess the profit is as high on individual global fare tickets. A few of the national rail company websites now link you to travel agency sites if you indicate a home country that’s not in Europe and/or won’t take your non-European credit card.

Thanks for the advice folks, I think I’ll do a lot more research before I just jump into purchasing a pass.

One helpful tool is “railsaver.”. It’s built into the trip planner or you can link to it under the “booking” tab. It uses an estimate of standard pricing to calculate which, if any, rail pass (or combination of pass and point to point tickets) is best. It’s not perfect and it does not consider the on-line, advance purchase special fares you might be able to purchase from the national rail company websites, but it’s the best general recommendation you’ll get without a lot of work on your part.