I am trying to book a wheelchair fare and attendant fare on the THALYS Train # 9315 leaving Paris, France on 4/12/11 at 8:25 am and arriving into Amsterdam on 4/12/11 at 11:43 AM. The Thalys website shows me there is a special fare for this (reduced) in Comfort 1 section, but does NOT allow me to book these fares on the website. It only allows me to from adult, Senior, or child. I also tried to email them (Thalys) on this situation, over a week ago with no response.
Anyone have any experience in this or could someone tell me how to book this online? The website gives phone numbers, but only from Europe. No 800 numbers from the USA.. HELP !!!!!
I think your only choice is to make an overseas call.
We had a similar problem with Thalys two years ago. In the end, got a friend in Germany to go to a station and make the booking for us, and later repaid her. Our experience with Thalys while traveling with my wife in a wheelchair was very discouraging. We were able to board only because other travelers assisted...no help from staff. When we got to our reserved "handicapped" space, it was piled high with the baggage of other passengers, some of whom rather grudgingly removed it when we complained. Fortunately for us, nearby regular seats were vacant, and we were able to transfer to them. This is in great contrast to the marvelous reception and help we found from Eurostar. We have used Eurostar's special handicapped rate 6 times between London and Paris and it has always been first class --quite literally, since the handicapped seats, although at a bargain price, are all in the first-class cars.
Ron -- if you do end up needing to call overseas, first contact your phone service provider and see of they have an international plan that you can subscribe to for a month or so. At least it used to be that you could play some small flat fee per month and then your per-minute cost for international calls was greatly reduced. I may be way off here, as maybe phone plans at home have advanced way beyond this, but this is how it used to work.