I ended up taking the Swatch to a local dealer, but apparently Swatch only guarantees their bracelets for six months, even on an unworn NIB watch, so I had to cough up £30 for a new bracelet... And four weeks turnaround...
Fair enough. I reckon it was a standard interference fit as already suggested. You'd have had to try to narrow the hole by punching it, which is not trivial.
I thought about expanding the head of the pin by exaggerating the starlike pattern with some wirecutters, but in the end it seemed like too much of a hassle
I ended up taking the Swatch to a local dealer, but apparently Swatch only guarantees their bracelets for six months, even on an unworn NIB watch, so I had to cough up £30 for a new bracelet... And four weeks turnaround...