Help with Paris metro

If you intend to use the metro, buy a Navigo Easy for €2. It’s a card that you load with individual tickets. Then load as many tickets (rides) as you think you’ll use. And everyone needs their own.

@HappyToBeHere, thanks for the suggestion!

Follow up question. I'm reading that I can't load Metro ticket(s) and an Airport ticket on a Navigo Easy card at the same time. Since I'll be arriving at the airport, is it possible for me to buy a Navigo Easy card and immediately load an Airport ticket on it to get me into central Paris? And then once there, load some Metro tickets to cover my next few journeys? Is that the way I should be doing it?

For 3 days, I would just get paper tickets

@Bigtyke, are they still available?

You can use buy day passes using your phone. Each person would download the Bonjour RATP app. A day pass is €12. Or each trip (within the city) is €2.50. So it depends on how much you plan to use the metro.

There is also a weekly pass offered through the IDF mobilities app for about € 31.

For 3 days, I would just get paper tickets

@Bigtyke, are they still available?

Paper tickets will be completely phased out by this November and many stations in Ile-de-France (the region that Paris is in) already have stopped selling these tickets.

Even if you can find the paper tickets, I would suggest either using your phone or the Navigo Easy card. Remember that you can be stopped within the RATP system and be asked to provide proof of a valid ticket, so if you use a paper ticket you need to keep it with you the entire trip (and also not confuse it with other paper tickets you may have on you). I found them fiddly and annoying and was very happy to pay the €2 for a Navigo Easy card.

The weekly pass referred to above (currently at €31.60) can often be the most cost-effective deal, but has strict conditions around timing / when to buy (it is strictly Monday to Sunday, not any 7 random days), and the IDF Mobilités app will likely geoblock you from creating an account if you are in the US. (The reason is that this weekly pass is not really designed for tourists -- they'd rather sell you a more expensive "Paris Visite" tourist product -- so it is not really optimized for overseas travelers' needs.)

Regarding paper tickets: We were in Paris and when we returned I forgot my Navigo Easy packed deep into my bag so rather than dig in my bag I tried to buy a paper ticket at the Metro station outside Gare de Lyon and could not. No paper tickets anymore at that station so I came home with 2 Navigo Easy cards and having spent an extra 2e.

I think the Navigo Easy card is the best big city transit solution I've seen. You can read the tickets remaining and see your last 3 uses on your phone and add more tickets - metro or bus - to your card from your phone. Before you head to dinner check your pass - and your partner's if you want - to make sure you have tickets to get around the city. Get caught short and you can add to it in the restaurant rather than in the busy metro station. Decide to take a bus? Just add a bus ticket while you wait for it.

I know you can do your phone or your watch but I like simplicity of the card versus hassling with the phone in the turnstile of the metro. If the phone app works for you it's probably even easier than using the app and card.

Enjoy Paris!
=Tod

This discussion is very helpful. Thank you all!

vintagegig, you're exactly right in your question about taking the RER into Paris. Buy your Navigo Easy at the airport and then load it with a ticket to Paris. Once there, add your métro tickets.

Next question: We'll have a long flight into CDG. For getting to Le Marais with our luggage, should we consider just taking a taxi? It appears to be a fixed price of 56 euros, as opposed to 39 total for the 3 of us to take the train. Not a huge difference if it'd be more convenient. Does that make sense? Then we could settle in, and go about getting accustomed to the metro when we're not with luggage.

Yes, that makes a whole lot of sense.

I agree. Take a taxi. Write down your address on a piece of paper, including the postal code (75xxx) and the €56 fare, so the driver knows that YOU know the fixed price. No tip is expected.

Great thanks!

I was just in Paris last week and used a Navigo Easy card - and it was easy. I bought it from a staffed metro station. I believe you must initially buy it from a person and it costs €2. They will ask you how many tickets you want to put on it to begin. After that you can use machines that are available at all metro and RER stations to add tickets. You can switch the machines to English.

The person I bought it from had little English so it was difficult to communicate how many tickets I wanted to start. In retrospect, it might have been helpful to write the number of tickets down (or have my hotel write it down in French). I also didn’t understand that metro tickets and bus tickets must be added separately (on the same Navigo Easy card) as they cost different amounts ( €2.5 and €2 respectively). The first time I rode a bus, the scanning machine made a horrible noise because I only had metro tickets on the card. The driver let it go, but I might have been refused a ride.

If you download the Bonjour RATP app, you can check how many tickets you have left on your card and see where and when your last three scans were. It will also give you lots of information about routes, maps, etc.

In summary:

From an airport, you may purchase a Navigo Easy card (2€) and load an airport ticket (13€) valid for travel to any métro/RER/Transilien train station. You may also load as many bus/tramway tickets as you like (2€). You may not load an airport ticket (13€ )with any métro/RER/Transilien tickets. Once you have reached your destination, add the desired métro/RER/Train tickets at 2.50€.

Bus/tramway tickets may be loaded simultaneously with métro/RER/train tickets but their use may not be interchanged.

From an airport, you may not purchase a Navigo Découverte card.

Thank you!

Not true…you absolutely can buy any of the passes at the airport, including Navigo Decouverte.
I have bought them at CDG twice.

https://parisbytrain.com/paris-train-metro-week-pass-navigo-decouverte/

Update: have just looked this up on the France forum on Tripadvisor, and it seems more then one person has been told in the past two weeks that they can’t buy an ND card at the airport, but were hustled into buying the N. Easy airport cards instead.

???

Isn't it always interesting when someone starts a post with the words "not true"?

May I refer you to this information found on the Transilien website:

Le passe Découverte n'est pas vendu avec un forfait Navigo Semaine aux guichets des gares de CDG1 et CDG2.

https://www.transilien.com/fr/page-tarifs/navigo-decouverte#content-section-205-part-3-tab

Roughly translated, you cannot purchase the weekly pass at CDG (and I don't think you can at ORY either).

Tocard, to clarify please. Previously one could buy the Navigo Decouverte card at CDG and then load the one week, Mon-Sun pass on it and use that to make your trip from CDG into Paris (assuming you are making the trip on a day covered by the one week pass). That is no longer the case? One has to buy the Navigo Easy card, add the CDG to Paris ticket, and then once in Paris, if they want the one week pass, also then buy the Navigo Decouverte card and load the one week pass on it? That seems unfair if one is coming in from CDG on a day that would be covered by the ND Mon-Sun card.

And yes, lots of confusion on the TA site suggesting this is a very recent change as per some locals.

@ Claire, I think it's becoming obvious that RATP really doesn't want tourists buying the weekly passes. They can't forbid it entirely but geoblocking the app, not making the pass available in Apple Wallet and not selling this one pass at CDG all point that way.

If Paris could only change to tap and pay on board with your own credit cards, like most other large cities, it certainly would be less confusing.
But perhaps more money is made in all the confusion…….

If Paris could only change to tap and pay on board

That would basically only benefit a few tourists, and tourists make up a very small percentage of overall transit revenue. I saw a recent article in le Parisien about this very subject and IDF Mobilités estimates the cost to implement a pay with credit card system would approach 100,000,000€, the cost to replace all the current card readers on the métro, buses, tramways, and at RER stations. Then there would be an even greater loss of overall revenue as card processing fees would take another 2% to 5%. It is very unlikely that this will ever happen.

Most users of public transportation are, not surprisingly, those living in the Ile de France and the large majority of them have Navigo cards with annual subscriptions, often paid for by their employers. If not that, residents use the Navigo Liberté card. Tap-to-pay is a very low priority item, the need is minimal.