France Rail Pass

Two things -- go to www.tripadvisor.com, Strasbourg, Paris, or France forum, and ask your question there. The go to www.seat61.com for all you'll need to know about train tickets in France, or Europe for that matter, and why passes are usually not recommended nor is Rail Europe. If you are hoping to use high speed trains to go from say Strasbourg on trips to Paris or Nice, those tickets go on sale 90 days prior to travel and get more expensive as the travel date approaches. Regional train tickets, for trips closer to Strasbourg, can be bought on the day of travel, never sell out, and are not that expensive. You are well within the 90 day window for TGV tickets but you can go to www.capitainetrain.com and do some comparative pricing if you have not already done so.

Rail Europe is authentic and legit; just not all that useful, especially with outfits like Captaintrain now around. I used RE once, and it was fine, but I doubt if I'll need to do so again. I just used Captaintrain to get tickets for an upcoming trip to France. Of course, if you want a pass, that's a different story.

Assuming you are student under the age of 28, you can get a "Jeune Railcard" for 50 euro, gives a flat 25% off all TGV rides for one year, I assume that also includes advance purchase discount fares like the Prems and Leisure fares. Details at: http://medias.sncf.com/sncfcom/pdf/cartesco/3VOLETS_JEUNES1827_EN.pdf

A rail pass is rarely useful anymore with the advent of the heavily discounted tix you can obtain through early purchasing. If you want to take trips from Paris to surrounding cities then just go to www.sncf.com and buy your print at home tix there.

I doubt if you friend got scammed on the actual RE site, they probably THOUGHT that's who they were dealing with. RE is a real company that's been around for a while, I got my passes through them with no problem.

And if you're already in France, you can probably find local options through your school or from travel agencies outside train stations that we can't access.

The France Rail Pass is a real thing, just happens not to be marketed by Eurail (other independent examples include BritRail, Swiss, and German rail passes). It is not sold in Europe. It can be a good value for longer trips, but you do still need advance reservations for TGVs (about $11 each), which you can make at the same time that you buy the pass, or at stations but well ahead. Although I heard that TGV trains are being less restrictive with passholder reservations now, that's not fully verified and quantified. Rail Europe is the primary US retailer for rail passes and tickets and has been for decades, before the European railways were able to offer web sales.

Remember that the validity period for using a France pass (and any other single-country pass) is within one month, such as from March 15 to April 14. Also note that this pass goes on sale for 20% off tomorrow, so for instance, a 5-day youth flexipass will drop from $208 to about $167.

Will the visiting family be doing enough travel to warrant a rail pass? If they are buying advance-discount reserved tickets, instead, then it could be easier to just book the whole party together with the same product. The youth/student discount card already mentioned is also certainly worth consideration.