CdG to Chartres on a Friday

Posted by M Boyer (Washington State US) on 03/11/23 02:02 AM

Question about traveling from CdG to Chartes on a Friday (3/24).

We're wondering if we can just get to Gare Montparnasse by local transit, and buy a ticket for the next SNCF direct-no-transfer train to Chartres.
I'm torn between the advice to always buy train tix in advance, and my sense that we have no idea how long it'll take to get from the airport to the Gare M. Do those SNCF trains to Chartres sell out?

I seem to have purchased an expensive, non-refundable, indirect pair of tickets to Chartres via Le Mans, but I guess it's a learning experience. AFOG!

Posted by Dick

Olympia, WA, USA

03/11/23 02:29 AM

6713 posts

That's a shame. Not only expensive and non-refundable but a longer ride and a change of trains.

There's frequent direct rail service between Gare Montparnasse and Chartres, though I don't think it's nonstop. As I recall it takes about an hour. It's a regular train that doesn't require advance tickets purchase or reserved seating. You could be standing in the aisle for part of the trip, though I don't know what the chances of that are -- didn't happen to us.

I think your other post indicated that you had about four hours between scheduled landing and departure of the train you bought tickets for. That should be ample time to get through immigration, baggage claim, and from CDG to GM by RER and Metro, or by taxi if you want to spend more for the convenience of door-to-door transportation. (That would have been a better use of money than the train via LeMans.)

I hope the rest of your trip will be so wonderful that this hiccup will be just that.

Posted by JHK

Florida (previously California)

03/11/23 04:27 AM

3984 posts

These are TER trains so there is no financial advantage to pre-buying them. I believe that with TER trains, because seats are not reserved, you can take any train on the date of travel. I buy my tickets ahead of time even when I am traveling by TER because I dislike dealing with the ticket machines in the stations and having to compost (validate) the tickets. I am not sure if composting is still a thing.

Posted by Sam

Green Bay

03/11/23 05:03 AM

21150 posts

The perils of trusting that when you go to the SNCF website and put in CDG to Chartres, you will get a reasonable result. SNCF cannot sell Paris transit tickets (RATP), so they route you through their own network, which gives crazy results for locations near Paris. A recent question on this forum asked why it took 8 hours to get from CDG to Bayeux and costs a fortune. Same issue. SNCF sent them to Lille, then back to Paris Gare du Nord, then told them to make their on way to Gare St Lazare to get a TER train to Bayeux. They never told them that RATP provided a train from CDG to Gare du Nord every 15 minutes costing 10.30 EUR taking 45 minutes and a free transfer to Gare St Lazare.

Posted by balso

Paris

03/11/23 11:57 AM

7301 posts

Are you sure you can't get a refund?
Most SNCF tickets excluding Ouigo are currently refundable, sometimes there is a 15€ penalty. I encourage you to double check, or to just cancel and see what happens.
Also, depending on how much money we are talking about, a firmly-worded complaint to their customer service could get you a 12-month voucher for future travel. I've had good success getting 50% of my money back in vouchers after mistakenly purchasing non-refundable tickets.