Metro ticket options: After watching the updated version posted by Les Frenchies on Youtube, I read in the comments below their Youtube posted video that the option to use the SNCF mobile smartphone app rather than a Navigo Easy or Weekly card only works with android.
Has anyone used the app successfully with an iPhone? We plan to use the metro just within the city limits (zone 1).
Has anyone had issues with their plastic phone protective case blocking the metro machine/gate from opening and allowing passage? Is it better to spend 2 Euros and purchase the Navigo card and to then purchase and load journeys/trips as needed?
Posted by
Chicago
8060 posts
passes and tickets cannot be loaded for us on an Iphone.
Posted by
Washington DC
87 posts
It only works with Android, so no, you can't use an iPhone--at least as of last month when we were there. You can, however, use an iPhone to top off/add to your Navigo Easy card, and it was surprisingly easy to do. You can load 10 tickets (a carnet) onto the card at a discount that essentially covers the 2 Euros. See if that would make sense for your travel plans.
One thing that may or may not apply to you: We arrived on a Sunday and had to go to a couple of stations to find a human to sell us the Easy card, which couldn't be purchased at a machine.
Posted by
MD
484 posts
I'm doing a day trip to Paris in October. From my research it looks like I'll have to get the actual card in the train station (I can't confirm that Gare de L'est has a place to purchase it, but Gare de Nord is closeby and definitely has one), then I can top it off on my Iphone. I think you have to take your phone case off and wave the card against it to add additional tickets (top it off) to the phone, but you'd use the screen of the phone to open the gates, so the case wouldn't interfere with that.
Once I started looking at the map though, it looks like most of the sites I want to see (zone 1) aren't so far away, and I can kind of make a big loop, so I'm thinking about walking rather than trying to figure out the metro system.
Posted by
OP
Illinois
162 posts
Thank you all for the valuable information. Based on your responses, the Navigo Easy Card is the way to go for our situation.
Posted by
Upstate NY, USA
822 posts
@KRS - the metro and bus system is really pretty easy, not much different than any major city.
i go solo, and have the 10 yr Navigo pass and load a weekly ND on it. I may not get the 'full value' of that pass but I don't have to worry about a ticket demagnetizing or finding a station that sells a ticket if my credit card doesn't work, for example.
Posted by
OP
Illinois
162 posts
Good point Skunklet Thank you