high speed train from Paris to Frankfurt

The best way to purchase tickets for that run is to use either the French railway website (http://www.voyages-sncf.com) or the German railway website (http://www.bahn.de/international/view/en/index.shtml). RailEurope will charge you much more for the same tickets. We've got a lot of people on this board with experience in purchasing on those sites, so if you run into any problems, just post again! With those two websites, you can probably book 90-120 days out, depending on the service you're looking for. But you can experiment by using fake dates just to see how the websites work.

I'll add a little to Norm's comments. You can book up to 90 days in advance at either site given. At the SNCF site the best fare, called MINI, is 39€. On the German site the same fare is called Europa-Spezial Frankreich. Book ASAP to have the best chance of getting a discount fare.

While there are some tickets you can print yourself, for this route you will have to receive them by mail. If you use the SNCF site, leave France as the default country, do NOT choose cancellation insurance, and have them sent to your hotel in Paris. (Officially, SNCF does not mail tickets to North America.)

However, the German site does send mail to North America and is very prompt about doing so.

Thank you for the information.

Cindy, another option for purchasing a ticket from Paris to Frankfurt, would be to stop by an SNCF Boutique as soon as you arrive in Paris. Unless it's a holiday or whatever, there shouldn't be any problems getting a seat.