Train from Avignon to Paris

Karen,

Train tickets are usually available 3-4 months in advance, however, some tickets may be available 6 months in advance.

Make sure you use the Official French Railways website when booking your tickets for best prices:http://www.sncf.com/en/passengers

I just checked the website above & there are some tickets available for June for the route, Avignon => Paris for €19pp.
Keep in mind that these discounted tickets are nonrefundable, so your dates must be set.

If you can't find the train schedule you need, you can sign up to receive an email notification when your train is available to book here: http://help.en.voyages-sncf.com/en/useful-information/traffic-info

Date is Friday, May 27th and the lowest fare for two people is 59.80 euros leaving at 3:37pm. I don't think I'll see anything for less, so I might as well book them now. The date is set, but hadn't decided if we wanted an earlier or later train.

We'll be checking out of our apartment in Vaison la Romaine and dropping rental car at the train station. Is there a place to store bags for a few hours until our train departure time?

The different days of the week have different prices. My memory - I don't have time to check the 2016 calendar - is that Fridays tend to be in the higher band.

You may well be running into a busy weekend for domestic French travel. I know it will be big for travel in Britain that week.

After reading this thread, I thought I would book our tickets, Avignon to CDG, May 10. However, I got the "not yet bookable" message from the website. Anyone have an explanation of why the other poster could find tickets for June?

Karen,

When I check the sncf website for your date, May 27, I do see the train you found departing at 3:47 for €24pp, but I also see this message:

Certain trains are not open for this booking:

AVIGNON > PARIS on 27/05/2016

So, if you keep checking, perhaps in a month or 2, you will have more ticket options, in terms of departure times.
You can get an idea by checking March 26 (also a Friday) & there are several TGV trains (departing @ 09h37, 10h04, 10h35, 12h37, 15h37) for €24pp.

In terms of leaving your luggage at the train station... there is no left luggage facility at the train station(s) in Avignon.

Rosalyn,
The (few) tickets that are available for June are for the route Avignon=> Paris not CDG.

I will be traveling this route (Avignon => Paris) in June, so I've been checking the website, but will probably not find my tickets till 3 months in advance.

Thank you, Priscilla.

As I was looking into trains on the SNCF site, I discovered a few things to pass on to other readers.

When searching under "timetables and real time traffic updates" the dates available to search are through March 28th, 3 months out. So when looking at March 25th, a Friday (same day as I'll be traveling on), there are 11 direct trains listed (between 9am and 6pm). In this option, it wasn't possible to search for any dates beyond March 28th. Most were TGV, but some were IDTGV trains.

Next, I searched under "reservations", saw the same trains for March 25, but only 3 trains for May 27th, all IDTGV. Now I'm wondering what's the difference between TGV and IDTGV- isn't the internet wonderful?

Below is the link that explains the difference between TGV and IDTGV, but basically, IDTGV are lower cost tickets released 5 months in advance, sold only on line, and require check in before the train departure. Sounds like the IDTGV cars are different but still part of the same TGV train departing at same time. The TGV tickets are released for sale 3 months in advance.

TGV vs. IDTGV

However, when I compare the May 27 IDTGV prices with the March 25 prices and options, they don't look to be any less expensive. I now see the "Certain trains are not open for this booking:" and will sign up to be notified when more trains are available in 2 months.

One more observation, for May 27th, the 9:54 train is 70 Euros for 2nd class and 72 euros for 1st class. The other trains have a wider gap in price between 2nd and 1st class.

I attempted to book tickets on the SNCF Voyager site, but after doing the final click to purchase, was sent to the Citi bank site to verify transaction, which failed. I called Citi, thinking it was declined due to being a foreign transaction, but they did not see any transaction attempt today.

Then I received email from SNCF which stated "We regret to inform you that your purchases from our site on the 30/12/2015 at 05h00 for the sum of 72.00 € did not conclude" with a link to a web site that states "Payments are subject to verification by, for example, the 3DS system (Visa and MasterCard) and Safekey (American Express). Cards that don’t have the 3DS or Safekey system may be rejected. Please contact your bank if you have any questions about your card."

Has anyone heard of 3DS? Might have just been a glitch, but I didn't try again on the SNCF site as the tickets then showed for 92 euros instead of the original 72.

I gave up on the SNCF site and went to the Captrain site, bought tickets for 72 euros for 1st class (IDTGV), and Citi MC went through without a hitch. Seems to me I recall something I'd read previously either on the forum or RS book about problems using credit cards on the SNCF site.

I hope this helps others attempting to purchase train tickets.