I'm wondering if anyone has had difficulty paying with their US VISA card at France's tgv-europe train reservation site. I am all set to book ticket from US but the site rejects my perfectly good Capitol One VISA card. I called my credit card co who told me no request had been made so it is blocked at the website level. The website says I can just call them on the phone which is easier said than done, both now and soon when I am traveling in Europe without a phone very shortly. Thoughts? Similar experiences? This is frustrating my attempts at substantial early booking savings.
Posted by
Washington DC Region, USA
7054 posts
I had a problem buying a concert ticket in Istanbul online (through a Turkish ticket agency) due to CapOne's heightened fraud alerts - I called them directly and told them what I was doing and that the site was safe. It worked right afterward and voila, the tickets went through. The only other thing I can think of is if the TGV site doesn't force you to input all the things that CapOne would require to counter fraud - including the 3 digit code on the back of the card, etc. But if the site is no different than any US site for purchases in terms of info needed from you, I would get CapOne on the phone and tell them you need to purchase something from this site. Best of luck!
Posted by
New York, NY, USA
11294 posts
Try clearing your cookies and browser history. Try using a different browser. Good Luck!
Posted by
Knoxville, TN, USA
7209 posts
Log on to you Cap1 account and complete the section that says you're traveling out of the country...in your case tell them your in France. THEN use your cap1 on the tgv website. On the other hand...if your journey involves a section in Switzerland then buy your ticket from the swiss website www.sbb.ch
Posted by
Used to be Steilacoom, now it’s Las Vegas
2296 posts
We had this problem two years ago and somewhere we learned it was because we were trying to buy too many tickets at once. Basically SNCF had a money limit for foreign transactions per week. A friend and I were doing it together using different cards and both had same problem. I don't know if this really was the reason, but we split up the reservations and did them over two weeks.
Posted by
San Antonio, TX, USA
67 posts
Oct. 2012 had CapOne VISA stop working 4 days into a 3 week trip in Spain. I had two hotel staffs help me. Time invested in straightening it out about 2 hours. The phone number given to me by CapOne in advance in the US to solve this very problem was a wrong number. I had about 6 rejected transactions. CapOne claimed there was only one rejection. So I had two problems, the repected transactions and the time and cost to correct this during my vacation. ALL my credit card and debit card companies (yes, I use multiple cards!) had multiple advance notifications of the time and place of my travel.