I needed information, so I looked at my train ticket from Paris to Caen and noticed the date is wrong! How can I change this? I am looking all over sncf's website, and they say you can email, but I can't find an address anywhere. I don't speak French so not sure calling will help.
I booked it through trainline.eu and unfortunately, I got a non-refundable/non-exchangeable ticket
This is for a trip in July-- currently in the US.
You can change it on the trainline.eu site. I have changed tickets SNCF before on the trainline.eu and just paid the difference. You can try:
thanks for your answers. This is what I found on trainline.eu:
My ticket is non-refundable and not exchangeable and I realised this too late!
Unfortunately there nothing that we can do. We really wish we could! The rail carriers determine the exchange and refund conditions of tickets, so we have to abide by this. For this reason it is really important to double check everything before you make your booking.
You can either choose to travel on the date you have booked or reserve a new ticket with the correct travel time. If you have a print-at-station ticket, then you can most certainly sell or give this ticket to a 3rd party.
A great website to use is www.trocdestrains.com. You can sell your tickets on this website (remember, only if they are print-at-station tickets!). Though, if you have an E-ticket, then you cannot give this ticket to anyone else. It is non-transferable and nominative, which means only you can use it and the name cannot be changed.
This means I have to buy new tickets and am out the price of these tickets. Darn it!!
Hopefully you didn't lose too much money on this ticket!
There are very clear conditions for every ticket purchase. If you go very early and get the cheapest tickets those are not exchangeable whether you book them from Trainline or from SCNF. We booked tickets this spring to Brittany and back to Paris and our tickets clearly laid out their conditions which did allow exchanges with a slight penalty (5 Euro I believe). And this of course needed to be done before the time booked. At least by getting them so early you probably got the cheapest possible tickets and so the loss won't be more than annoying.
Yeah, I was very aware of the non-refundable/non-exchangeable when I booked them. I also was paranoid that something like this would happen, so I thought I was being very careful on getting the exact date... but apparently, something went wrong. I'm out about 50 euros and the new tickets were 78 :( In the grand scheme of things, it's not the end of the world, but still...
This time I booked through sncf :)
athorste, did you get the day/month wrong when booking?
Stan- I think what happened was when I clicked on the little calendar, the format was Mon-Sun, not Sun-Sat and I just had a brain lapse and clicked on the date that I thought was Sunday. I checked the train schedules so many times and caught myself about 1/2 of the time looking at the wrong date, so I think when I actually purchased the tickets, I just wasn't as careful :(
In the past I have seen trainline recommended by travellers; is that okay or best to book through SNCF? Appreciate tips as I need to book train tickets from Gare St Lazare to Bayeux soon and find the process intimidating.
athorste, that's why I stopped buying European calendars for souvenirs! Screwed up a couple of appointments that way. Good luck.
In the past I have seen trainline recommended by travellers; is that okay or best to book through SNCF? Appreciate tips as I need to book train tickets from Gare St Lazare to Bayeux soon and find the process intimidating
Trainline.eu is fine more user friendly than the SNCF site where my credit card has never worked.
The tickets are the same price.
The point is no matter what site you use to buy something read the details, pay attention to what you are doing before you put your credit card number in and click to buy or have someone else do it for you.
You cannot blame anyone. I have gotten burned a couple of time on the same calendar situation. The start of the week on Monday and ending on Sun is fairly common in Europe and on Europe web sites. It does make some sense that Monday is the start of the week. Now when I make a European reservation via the internet I write down the exact date --
Tuesday, June 19, 2018 and then the European style 19/6/18. Hopefully that prevents future mistakes.
Not to be snarky, but Americans seem to have a problem understanding -- non-refundable/non-exchangeable ticket -- means exact that. It is unfortunate but hopefully this learning lesson is not too expensive and others will pay attention.
Frank, I do understand the non-refundable/non-exchangable, and the previous 1000 times that I looked up the ticket, I made sure to get the date correct. I was paranoid that I would screw it up (which explains why I looked it up 1000 times... I just couldn't get myself to actually purchase the ticket). I guess when it came down to it, I wasn't as careful as I thought I was being. I guess it's a "live and learn" situation. I'm sad I'm out 50 euros, but at least I caught it and avoided being stuck in Paris with no place to stay :)
Patty, so far I have been happy with trainline, but I've purchased directly through sncf and have had good luck too. I did find more times going directly through sncf.
Trainline is just fine, sells Tix in France at the same price as SNCF, and is WAY more user-friendly. No reason not to use them in France (I know that in the UK they charge an additional fee, so they are NOT the best method of purchase in the UK).
It wouldn't have made any difference had the OP bought their ticket directly from SNCF. Non-refundable is non-refundable. Trainline was merely adhering to the SNCF conditions governing that ticket.
50 Euro is the price for a single in a Pension in Munich and Berlin, actually it is less than 50. Going 1st class from Paris to Frankfurt on the TGV is 49 Euro.
Interestingly enough, the tickets booked through trainline are in French; the tickets booked through sncf are in English.
(the 50 euros is for 4 tickets)
OP - sorry to read this... the money is not big....just the principal. But I’m glad to see your having a positive attitude. Please disregard the Debbie Downers, it is obvious you are aware of the nature of your tickets being non-refundable- it is also justified to ask if anyone knew a proper, up front work around—- actually you just asked if anyone knew an enail address so you could just ask - you weren't demanding anything nor making excuses.
While i have not mis-bought train tickets i have mis-hit keys while internet shopping. I need to punch key x and what do i do, hit key y, like my mind and finger were not connected...oh well. Last year i booked a $400 hotel room for an event in Monterey 8 months in advance. I later decided not to attend the event as I returned from a 3 wk Paris visit only a few days before but I totally forgot about my prebooked room until the Visa bill arried..,I was on the verge of screaming on the phone with Visa when i recalled that i did have a guaranteed reservation for that hotel and it thus wasn't a false charge—-oh well, live and learn.
Sid
