Sale on SNCF (Rail) Discount Cards

Oh, my goodness: I do wish I'd seen this earlier! Now it's too late to have the Senior+ card sent to me in Australia before I leave. It would have been great to save time on my arrival day with a tight connection at CDG between flight and TGV train. As for end of promotion, I think it may be the end of May as the spiel says "before May" as the offer still seems to be working. For me the problem is just the slow mail delivery between Europe and Australia.

Could you explain how the discount cards work? We will be in France in September and will be doing some train travel before and after the Eastern France tour. Thanks!

Barb, I've only been using the Senior+ Card for a few weeks, and just for a bunch of very short trops. I don't read French and suspect that there's more information out there for those who do. It appears that the card is giving me at least a 25% discount on my purchases (same-day or up to 48 hours ahead of time so far), but sometimes it is 50% off, or approximately that. The logic may be that I'm getting 50% off the tickets I buy so late that there are no promo tickets left, but just 25% off the promo tickets.

I've only taken TERs so far, but the discounts work on fast trains, too. It's just that their base fares are painfully high if you don't buy way in advance, so they're still unattractive to me after the discount.

I'm having no trouble using my chip-and-signature US credit card to buy my tickets through the regional-ticket vending machines. I have not been asked for a PIN, though that may be related to go the modest cost of the tickets I've purchased so far. The machines allow you to select the various discount-card options, then you show the card along with your ticket if a conductor comes along. Which so far has been infrequently.

I was able to buy the discount card easily at a staffed desk at the Nice station. I needed a passport-size photo (I think just one, but I'm not sure; I had several with me).

One wrinkle I wasn't aware of before my arrival is the existence of Blue and White fare periods on the TERs, all of which otherwise have the same price for all departures between any given pair of stations (for the same time of purchase and travel date). You can buy a TER ticket good for any departure on your chosen date, but if you choose Blue-period pricing, you have to avoid peak-period trains. And the peak times are not the same every day. For all I know, they may even vary by origin. Today (Tuesday) peak pricing was in effect from Marseille between 6:30 and 8 AM. For my return from Aix, I had to avoid trains between 5 and 6:30 PM. There's a small sticker showing the Blue and White periods stuck on each ticket vending machine, but they are hard to read.

Back when I was young enough I had the 12-25 card and it really was worth it. Ever since I got too old for it I always mourn how much of a discount that card gave me!

Thank you for all of the information. I'll look at the SNCF website again and see if I figure out how to order online...looks a bit confusing to me!

Barb, I found purchasing the Senior+ card on the online site in English easy enough to follow, but having the card sent by mail was the only option, and I hadn't left enough time for that.

It is possible to take advantage of the discount fares before arriving in France if you select "pay in euros" in the header on the search page on the Loco2.com site and then "add a railcard", before selecting the actual train you want to travel on: then the fare that is shown will be the discounted fare. I have done this for all my train bookings in France during June-July, so I shall need to go to a ticket office to obtain my Senior+ card (at the full price of 60€ - ugh!) before I board the first train so that I can show it to the inspector on the train if requested. It would have been great to have it for 29€ before leaving home. Just hoping it will be offered again at that price early enough next year.

So supposedly the sale ended today 5/31. But have no fear, I ran an lot of numbers and bottom line you really have to do a lot of training to make the carte senior pay. Remember even w/o the card there is still a senior discount for 60 yos.

Yes, the senior discount is 25%. The card gives 50%. You really have to do the math.