I am in big trouble! Tickets problems from Bern to Paris

Barbara, there are no limited trains for June 10. I'm curious which website is leading you believe that seats are limited and that they have to mail them to you. I suspect RailEurope. I'm looking at www.rail.ch, the official Swiss train website and I see 13 high-speed trains on June 10 from Bern to Paris. I can buy a 2nd class seat on any of them at this time. Further, on many, I see symbology for the morning trains that indicates low occupancy expected. That means that there are lots of seats. The afternoon trains are showing a symbol that means higher occupancy expected. You won't have trouble getting a ticket. It may be possible to print your tickets out at home. If all else fails, which it won't, you can always step up to 1st class where there is usually availability. You can also buy tickets on the same trains from the French at www.tgv-europe.com. Choose Great Britain as the country where you will be picking up your tickets. (Don't worry, you won't be going to Great Britain to get your tickets). If you pick USA, you will be switched to RailEurope which you do not want for this trip. If you are willing to depart on the 07:04 train, I see a special fare of 51.40Euro (less than 1/2 price). You can print these tickets out at home on your printer. That's why you can put Great Britain in as you ticket collection country. I purchased several tickets on this website and it works great.

You can buy on the Swiss rail site and choose either the print at home option, or pick up at the ticket counter. No problem.

If you are already wandering the websites and find a Prems fare there is no reason to wait. It will only go up. They never go down. Just do it and print out at home. You're not trying to get TGV seat reservations on a Eurail pass are you? You just want a ticket, right?

I was on the swiss site last night Must be doing something wrong how I'm trying to tickets I could not pull up trains from bern to Paris I go to the ticket section click on standard ticket and enter inbern to paris
I then went to the tgv site as the one reserved hl train. from Basel to Paris is theirs they had seats on the connecting train from Basel. I guess the train from bern is a local train. I tried to make the reservations but it's because I am leaving tomorrow for europebut won't need this n train till june 10Th the website will not allow me to the option to print or pickup the tickets its forcing me to put in my address and wont let me proceed to the next page

By the way no I am not trying to get a reservation with a eurail pass

No magic wand yet, but just a couple of points. The TGV from Basel to Paris actually starts in Zurich, stopping on the way to Paris in Basel. That's why you need a connection from Bern to Basel. Domestic Swiss trains don't do reservations. Any train from Bern that day to Basel would work if you left enough time to connect. Basel is quite a large station - the main station has over a dozen platform and another half dozen in the French station. Don't worry about the French part of the station, you will be changing trains in the main part, likely leaving from platform 5. I see a Swiss fare of CHF 167 full fare, CHF non refundable on the 07:34 departure, 12:35 arrival. Printing was an option as was Ticket Counter and Post. Any reason if you are having trouble printing you couldn't collect it from a ticket counter or ticket counter machine in Bern before you board?

I have never used that Tickets tab on Rail.ch. I start by entering my journey in the To and From spaces in the Timetable that pops up when you go to the site. Put in a date and time and hit search. The next page will offer four or five trains. Check out the connection times, etc using the little +sign at the left. When you decide on the right one, use the red Fare/Buy button and go from there. I put in Bern and Paris and had no trouble getting as far as the last step for purchasing tickets on the same train Nigel mentioned. But if you are seniors, enter your age and the standard fare will to 120 CHF. This will include the ticket from Bern to Basel. You can print out the tickets, or pick them up at the station in Switzerland ( which is what I did when I bought international tickets as they did not offer the print function then).

Barbara I am answering you in the open after your PM because others can help, too. I found that, as Lola says, on the SBB (www.rail.ch) website. You are uncomfortable with a 7 minute connection at Basel taking the 7:34 from Bern. You could easily take the 7:04 from Bern instead, it will give you an extra 30 minutes in Basel. As you change tracks up on the overbridge is a pretzel place and down by track 1 is Migros suoermarket and quick food place which you could use to load up for the journey to Paris. In fact, behind the ticket counter is a great bakery. Anyway, after I stop dreaming about food in Basel - the earlier train I just spoke of is a German ICE bullet train which starts its journey in Interlaken Ost at 6am. Because there are no reservations within Switzerland it is perfectly OK to ride on that one. You may find some seats are reserved for the journey into Germany but there will be lots open at that time of day, especially as I think your travel day is a Sunday. In fact, you could stay in Interlaken instead of Bern that night and just be sure to be over to the station for 0600 (Interlaken Ost) or 0605 (Interlaken West). If doing it from Interlaken West you need to be a couple of minutes early so you can cross the tracks to platform 2 before the gates come down - sometimes that particular train will come in on platform 2 instead of platform 1 at Interlaken West. Hotel Lotschberg is practically across the street from the West station. I've stayed there three times, twice in the guest house and once in the hotel.

thanks to all for your help.. NIGEL your web link made all the difference for some reason the sbb page i was on was not working right.. I sorted it all out and we made some changes but I now have tickets in hand just wanted to thank all you wonderful people on the boards who graciously offered to help me..!! you have been awesome and i am off tomorrow !