Artesia Night Train tickets - Paris to Milan - HELP!

Did you try the French train website, SNCF? apparently the trick is to say you are in Great Britain (or the UK?) and then the site will be in English but won't kick you over to RailEurope.

SCNF.com gives some great information, but to puchase tickets they show you a list of retailers that you can use within your country. I don't know if it is kosher to choose Great Britain to purchase tickets as you are using a travel agent from that country. I would assume the fee would be fairly high. If you choose the US, they give you a list of travel agents as well. So it looks like you can't buy the tickets directly from SCNF (on-line).

I am also sending an e-mail to Euraid, their website has been under construction for a couple of months, so there is not a lot of information to go on for that particular company, other than the fact that they charge a $50 fee.

Update: I checked out www.tgv-europe.com based on a post in the archives. Looks like I can choose the tickets I want, but there is no eurail passholder option. So it is more costly. I am starting to regret purchasing the eurail pass as it limits my ability to buy specific tickets requiring reservations.

I sent an e-mail to Euraid and will hopefully hear back from them soon. If anyone has any other suggestions, I would be most greatful!

I just tried a "pretend" booking on the tgv website and, like you, found tickets but not reservations only.

I think there are people here who know the solution but maybe won't be back here until tomorrow.

You might try just calling RailEurope and see what they suggest, . . and the charge. No harm in just asking.

You could check ItaliaRail.com, They have the train you listed for $210 total for just the reservation, not a ticket. Leaves Paris at 20:33 and arrives in Milan at 05:38.

I am not 100% sure about Italia Rail, but they seem to have good prices, better than Rail Europe. I am pretty new to this, so maybe someone else has a better plan, but I want to make reservations for the Artesia also for later in the summer (Venice to Paris) and I'm having trouble finding a place that both accepts my credit card and doesn't try to rip me off with upcharges.

Sherry,

As Heath said, the passholder supplement at italiarail.com for two beds in a 2-person sleeper is $210 + a shipping fee. At raileurope.com it's $214 + a shipping fee. For comparison purposes only I checked the Trenitalia site. It lists a price of 150 EUR (just under $200).

As of this morning the Rail Europe site would have allowed me to buy the supplement for the Paris-Milan night train on 16 July.

If you are going to take a night train on 30 June as well as on 16 July--and some day trains that require reservations--it might pay to buy them from Euraide. You'll find their USA phone number on their Web site, www.euraide.com. For a single $50 fee they will make all your reservations for you, no matter how many, at the in-Europe price.

You could try calling German Rail in Germany at (49) 1805 996633 (mind the time difference). They will have English speaking operators, although you might be on hold a few minutes.

They can sell you the reservation at European prices using a credit card and mail you the tickets.

Thank you to everyone for the help! I successfully made my reservations on the night train that I needed for the 16th. I figured out my mistake. On raileurope I was trying to get the night train and then connecting train to Monterosso. It wasn't letting me so I was worried. After reading the posts, I just tried to do Paris to Milan (as this is the most important thing I had to reserve) and IT WORKED! I'll just take care of the connecting train from Milan to Monterosso once I get there as there are several that go during the day.

Whew! Now I just need to pray that the volcano is nice and calm this July!

Sherry, Did you end up booking through RailEurope? I was just curious since I plan on booking a similar trip (Venice to Paris) for later in the summer.

Glad everything worked out!

Yes, I did it through Rail Europe. Very smooth transaction and chose E-ticket service, so the charge was only $12.95. I got an immediate e-mail with my e-ticket confirmation. I printed the instructions on how to retrieve my e-tickets at the French Station. So I am ready to go! I decided that since I didn't need to book any other major trips for the train that this worked better as Euraid charges the flat fee for orders (which works for several trips, but not worth it for just one).