I have tried to book/buy these tickets on the DB site they won't show the prices or when I I get to the bottom and am asked to enter "country" and enter USA, it says not possible. I have not had that problem with the Trenitilia site or the Austria train site. What am I doing wrong??? HELP
Barb
DB will only sell tickets that have a segment stopping in Germany. Go to the French rail site, there's a link in the train passes/travel page on this website.
Thanks, Zoe. I'll try that.
Barb
Barb,
You might also have a look at the Capitaine Train website, as you'll probably find that buying tickets there is a much more "user friendly" experience than the SNCF website.
Tickets don't go on sale until 90 days out, so you won't see prices until then.To get an idea of the prices, pick your day of travel 90 days out from today, you will see the various options. The basic schedule and price change very little over the year, if at all.
Ken is right. Capitaine Train is an excellent website and sells tickets at the same price as the user-unfriendly SNCF website.
Since you indicated France in your headline, you can get your name on the SNCF site for notifications of special deals. Sometimes the company promotions go on sale well in advance of the 90-day limit. As well, the old trick for indicating the country to retrieve your ticket is to avoid specifying the US since SNCF will bump you to the RailEurope site. For a giggle, say you live in Antarctica. Works fine.
Rick’s France rail travel page has the direct link and tips for buying “Prems” rate TGV tickets through SNCF (cheap, reserved, nonrefundable, available starting three or four months ahead of your travel date) to print at home and pay with PayPal. It does not tend to work with US credit cards, unless you have an extra level of security set up. After that Prems rate is sold out, you may need to use US-based vendors, like www.capitainetrain.com or Rail Europe.
Capitaine Train isn't US-based, it's a French company.
For travel in France I always check France as the ticket retrieval point if there is no e-ticket option. You can go to one desk agent and pick up all your tickets at one time.
