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How do you buy a TGV train ticket on their website?

Hi there I was looking at buying a TGV train ticket on their website. In particular I wanted to buy a 12:00 noon departure on the IdTGV train as the time was the most convenient.

At first it looked simple. I tried but the calendar said it could only book 3 months out. So I waited a couple of months, until the calendar was available, and tried to book. I tried booking on the SNCF website, but when I put in my country it put me through to some other website (not sure if it was a scam or computer virus) as the directed website Rail Europe which charged much higher prices.

Next I went to the idTGV website, and it was buggy. I kept getting script errors on Internet Explorer. Then I used Firefox, Opera and Chrome web browsers and non of them would take me to the payment page. They would let me choose my seats, then they would ask me the passenger names and birth dates, and after entering all that information it would ask me for the person organizing the trip. In that section it kept saying there was an error with my phone number. Hence I could never even get to the payment page.

So back I went for another half hour trying the SNCF website trying to book. This time I noticed there was a small link, and if I quickly closed the SPAM pop up for Rail Europe I could continue to the SNCF website which has the lower price. Then I complete all the information. But after I enter my credit card information and security ID, it finally says sorry there was an error at this time please try again.

Posted by
2261 posts

vhs-I would suggest trying www.capitainetrain.com, it's a much more user friendly experience. I have used it for TGV tickets in France, as have many others on the Forum-it works great with none of the country issues.

Posted by
45 posts

Are you located in North America??? Last year (and this one too!) I booked all our train tickets through "Capitaine Train". They are FANTASTIC! Extremely user-friendly site and they got me throughout France and Germany last year without a hitch! Their customer service (via e-mail) was top shelf.....responded to all my "nervous nellie" questions within 24 hours. I even was able to buy Eurostar tickets through them this year. I have used Rail Europe (I am from Canada) in the past but saved big dollars by using Capitaine Train. Check them out on FB or go right to their site....www.capitainetrain.com.....

Posted by
373 posts

another vote for Capitaine train. Works smooth and easy for tickets we bought last summer

Posted by
16893 posts

Voyages-SNCF.com offers a reliable PayPal payment option only for Prems rates, but not for iDTGV and other rates, and doesn't work with many US credit cards. Rail Europe doesn't sell either Prems or iDTGV, but CapitaineTrain does.

Posted by
4 posts

Thank you everybody for your responses.

I really wonder how TGV sells any tickets on their website! I should have read the forum here earlier. Unfortunately for me, your responses are excellent. The best way to book a train ticket within france and elsewhere I imagine is to use the captaintrain website as you all recommend.

I did finally get the sncf website to work. It wouldn't sell me the idTGV for some reason. But it would sell me the regular TGV tickets. What I needed to do first was make and complete an account. You do that by clicking on the "my account" option in the upper right hand corner. Once I had an account, I could log onto the account, and then I could then make a purchase as it wouldn't bother asking me what country I was from. As well for some reason that also seemed to fix the credit card authorization.

Now here is the kicker. The website says that you can select seats on the TGV train, and it even says "click here to change seats" but the webpage does not have a working link. After going through the help menu it looks like TGV trains, you cannot change seats. I guess that would be too high tech for the high school kid who made the website. ha ha. Anyhow it does pre-assign you seats at least but in my case, the website also wouldn't let me book the family of 6 in one purchase, I had to break it up into 4 and then purchase 2. So two of us are in a separate car. Not a big deal as its only a 2 1/2 hour train ride.

Although I purchased the tickets, I checked back on this forum. I went to the captaintrain website that everyone here mentioned just to see a price comparison and see if it would take me to the purchase screen. It looked like the captaintrain would work wonderfully and would even let you book the idTGV train too!

Posted by
112 posts

Capitiane Train is the best way to order train tickets for France and Germany (including Eurostar). No fees and you can select your seat!