Train from Avignon TGV to Paris

You can look at The Trainline or the official SNCF site and avoid extra charges that Rail Europe levies.

Also, tickets for end Aug in two months have been for sale for a while, so the cheap ones might be gone already. Sales open three months ahead, and even four months ahead of the busy summer period.

I second using Trainline or oui.sncf, the official SNCF website if you are comfortable working in French. Trainline will levy you a small service fee if you are non-European based on your IP address, but otherwise both have the same availability of trains and prices, better than Rail Europe.

There is no advantage in waiting to purchase, especially now that the SNCF has simplified the ticketing structure and all tickets (except Ouigo tickets) are covered under the same exchange and refund policy. (Previously, tickets bought very far out were often un-exchangeable and non-refundable, but now even very cheap advance-purchase tickets are covered under the same standard exchange and refund policy.) Prices will only rise from now.

The standard exchange and refund policy is:

Tickets are exchangeable and refundable up to 30 days before departure
for a €5 fee, which increases to €15 from two days before until the
day of departure. From 30 minutes before the train departs, ticket can
be changed up to two times for the same day and the same journey, and
is non-refundable once exchanged. Any difference in price between the
old and the new ticket will be added to this fee. Tickets will not be
exchangeable or refundable after departure.

There are no alternate rail service providers for now aside from the SNCF.

Even for late August you can have tickets Avignon-Paris from € 45 (more expensive in the weekends).

Looking at the price calendar at https://en.oui.sncf/en/calendar/ for the month of August.
Tuesday to Thursday, every day has tickets for 38 EUR. The highest price is 76 EUR on Sunday Aug 18.
These low prices are not available for all departures, but some.

Seat61.com is often recommended on this forum. It’s very helpful in explaining all your options. Seat61 says Trainline (with added fee) and Loco2 (no fee) are the easiest sites to purchase from.

Are these low prices quoted by tom and Sam on the Ouigo train? On Tues-Thurs (least expensive days)? And/or because it’s August?

I just bought tickets last week on the first day they were available on a regular TGV (not Ouigo) for a Friday in late Sept Avignon-Paris for $57.50 pp.

Yes, on Ouigo.

I believe you're actually traveling in late September, not August, based on your earlier post and on the idea that you recently received this notice. For test dates in mid-late September, Rail Europe has tickets from $51 per person on regular, direct TGV Inoui, not the budget-minded TGV OUIGO. However, the odd thing that I'm seeing is that I only get that result by specifying Avignon TGV station. If you search from Avignon Centre (or just plain Avignon), you get the higher fares, which I'll assume is a type of glitch.

tom, thanks, that helps explain the low price. I did not want a Ouigo train.

Laura, how much does RailEurope add in fees to that $51 price?

The ticketing fee is $7.95 for the whole order.

BTW, I did just alert them that trying to book with the regional train connection from Avignon Centre station was pulling full fares instead of available advance discounts.

I just now (maybe 20 minutes ago) booked a TGV from Avignon to Paris for Saturday at the end of September.
As suggested by Jazz + Travels on another post, I used https://en.oui.sncf/en/, which I think is the best site for dealing direct with SNCF. I did have a great deal of difficulty even though these tickets had only opened up in the last few hours. But the difficulty I had was in finalizing the payment. The site simply did not want to take my credit card. I posted another question (SNCF TGV credit card payment help, PLEASE!) The replies offered some good help. But by then I was back thrashing around and finally at long, long, long last decided to try a different credit card (both were Chase premium cards). There was no problem whatsoever with the 2nd card I tried! No rhyme or reason to this! So, my advice, based on my own experience and very much on advice offered to me by Alan and Jazz+Travels Would be to try the site and if you get to the payment portion and it doesn't work try (1) using a different browser, (2) clearing cookies, (3) switching computers, as in desktop or laptop to phone or vice versa. If that doesn't work, try a different credit card. I was just now able to get 2 1st class tickets with our choice of train car, deck and seats, direct Avignon TGV to Paris for €102. Personally, I think OUIGO is fine if you don't mind a crowded somewhat noisy environment and you don't mind being assigned whichever seats they pick for you 4 days prior to departure, oh, and being on the platform at least 30 minutes in advance. But my husband and I decided that what it was worth our while to spend the euros on 2 1st class tickets which would allow us to choose our seats. Not saying I would never use OUIGO, but this seemed a lot easier for this time. Hope this helps

Or, you can by-pass all that hassle and buy through Loco2.com which charges no fee. I just bought TGV Avignon-Paris through Loco2 last week for late Sept and it took me 2 min.