ready to book tickets for the legs of our trip. I see that buying through Trainline and ricksteves are both mentioned often. How does that compare with SNCF app? If I purchase the Senior Avantage discount card, will I be able to use it if booking through another site. Thank you for any feedback.
Posted by
Washington DC
30707 posts
SNCF will be the least expensive ticket source. Since I always buy train tickets from the railroad website (in any European country), I have no idea whether the Senior Advantage Card is usable on other websites. You should be able to determine that by beginning a ticket-purchase transaction and watching to see whether there's an input field (or more likely a pull-down box) for discount cards.
Posted by
Wengen
4267 posts
You can add the "carte avantage" in its different forms on trainlines. Just click on "add loyalty andrailcards" in the passenger entry form, and scroll to SNCF in the list.
Trainline is a convenient place to buy tickets, and is even regularly used by the French themselves (all my French colleagues use it for business trips for example) because the website is easier to use that the SNCF connect. The former was created by a group of programmers unhappy with the SNCF website, the latter was created by programmers who hate people.
One advantage of Trainline is that it also will show you other operators. SNCF is no longer the only game in town in France.
Another options is https://www.12train.com/
French only, but created to make the whole ticket buying experience as simple and straightforward as possible. Only has SNCF trains currently though.
Posted by
Middletown, RI
1689 posts
I always buy direct from SNCF. Everyone else is just a re-seller and I don't see the point.
Posted by
2011 posts
I found the SNCF app very useful and user friendly.