confused about Trains (France & Spain)

I've seen a lot of comments about avoiding Raileurope, but I recently used them for train tickets in France, and had no problem, except I believe they add a $7.50 service charge. Before I made the reservation I checked the TGV site, and the price was the same. Raileurope gave me the option to print at home or print at an automated machine in France. I chose Print at Home but somehow forgot to actually print it (I saved it as a PDF document, and had it on my laptop, so I could have printed it somewhere in France if necessary). But with Print at Home there is the option of printing an additional copy at the machine at the train station, which I did. The 6-letter code I needed was on the e-tickets. Although I had a chip and pin card, it wasn't needed. Just put in my name and the code. Hope this helps.

Go this website (Seat 61) for help about buying European train tickets:
http://www.seat61.com/Europe-train-tickets.htm. It really helped me with our recent trip to France and Germany. I bought all of our train tickets online and picked up the French SCNF tickets at one of their boutiques in Paris instead of at the station. When you buy online, they will give you a confirmation code that you print out and take with you for pickup along with the credit card that you used. It's just like the confirmation codes the airlines use. The biggest tip from the Seat 61 website is to not tell the Rail Europe website that you are purchasing tickets from the United States because that will redirect you to the US Rail Europe page and will cost more money. Instead I said I was purchasing from Great Britain. If you buy a Rail Pass and plan to use fast trains, you will need to buy seat reservations for each trip. That can add up quickly. There many posts on this TH about train tickets and what to do. For Germany, I was able buy e-tickets and that worked great, also.

Thanks for both replies.. i will look into the other website..

RailEurope is a subject of on-line controversy. As other forums indicate, SNCF, the French train service, is a part owner and bumps Americans to the site where prices tend to be higher and choices limited (in my opinion.) The SNCF in English which you have found, www.TGV-Europe.com, works perfectly well if you specify you live in England or Canada or Antarctica, not a region known for its train travel. You get more choices of prices and seat reservations there. On some routes you can print out your tickets. On others, you get an authorization which you redeem for tickets once you are in France, at any SNCF station or boutique. You can go to a machine if you have a chip credit card (all Canadian cards will have a chip within a year, another reason to be bitter about US banks.) Or take your print-out authorization to an agent, stand in line and think about where you will have an amazing dinner. All that is required is the original credit card. he PIN number is on the card. It should be 4-digit. Prices are cheapest far in advance -- this forum and others are stuffed with advice or go to www.parisbytrain.com or www.seat61.com You should do your own research so you understand what is happening when you are en route.
Lots of arguments, too, about passes. Americans automatically think they can save money. Not for me (I am far past the student rates.) Unless you intend to spend all your time on the train, point-to-point is generally better, but the best prices require booking far in advance. Like the budget airlines, prices rise as the departure draws near. They are not fixed. Passes can be a hassle when reservations are required. For Eropean schedules, the best site is the German www.bahn.com, although it is not perfect and cannot sell tickets outside Germany.

To be honest, I haven't been following the online controversy regarding RailEurope. However, I did compare prices of a pass vs. tickets in Spain/France (I have a "Spain/France" pass) and 3 train trips, the pass was the cheaper option. RailEurope has done a great job of making all my reservations for me as the dates become available - the ability to book your train doesnt nessesarily follow the 90 day rule in France or the 60 day rule in Spain. Most of my reservations were made before then, and so only checking every day like RailEurope does, would have given me the times I wanted. They are mailing me all my reservations and passes for $18 and they charged me $15 for doing the bookings. All in all RailEurope was very helpful and everything was very straightforward.

Here are my 2 cents. A six- day France-Spain pass, second class Saver, costs $362 on this website. That means $60 per trip average, plus the reservation fee ( which is high for the AVE trains in Spain, and they are limited in number). I don't know what the two legs in France cost, but these are the prices you will pay for the Spain trips with the Web discounts available on Renfe (and from agents like Rail Europe, Petrabax or Rumbo.es with a handling fee): Barcelona to Madrid to Toledo, 47 euros plus 11 for a total of 58 euros; Toledo to Sevilla, via Madrid, 11 plus 33 euros, total 44; Sevilla to Granada, around 25 (regular fare, no Web discount, this one is from memory so might be a bit more); Granada to Madrid, 26.80 with a Web discount. I believe that is cheaper than the pass, especially after you add the reservation fees.

Yes, that is a valid point. Many of the legs of my trip were much farther in distance (one was 8 hours), so each leg would be more costly to buy individual tickets for. Therefore, the pass (which is the same price no matter how long or expensive each travel day is - you only pay a different price depending on the NUMBER of travel days), was less expensive. I guess the decision would be different for everyone, depending on the cost of the individual tickets for each leg.

this is a duplicate post - the other post also has answers. That can be confusing

Thank you everyone for your responses..I think I understand better how it works and as soon as the dates are closer I will check both sites and figure out wich one is a better choice for me.. As far as the rail passes..i probably choose each point-to point ticket since it appears to be some restrictions and i prefer to have peace of mind and anyway seems that the savings (if any) are not worth the trouble. Thanks again.

The one thing about getting my ticket through RailEurope was that I didn't need a chip credit card (which I had anyway), or any credit card, to get my ticket at the SNCF station. I just punched my name and 6-letter code in and had the tickets printed. Next time I'll try to use the tip about using SNCF or TGV site and then listing UK as my country of residence, and see if I get the same options.