Missed train w/TVG ticket on France Rail pass-

I'm not absolutely sure, but I believe if you miss your reserved time on the TGV, your reservation is no longer valid and you'll have to buy another. Note that Passholder reservations in France are limited and sold on a quota, and once that's reached no more can be sold for a particular train, even if there are seats available.

Buying a rail ticket to connect with an inbound flight is not usually recommended by most here (including myself), as if you miss the train due to flight delays, long lines at Passport control or whatever, your ticket is worthless and you'll have to buy another. The "safest" method is simply to buy a ticket or a reservation to use with your Railpass when you arrive at CDG.

See if this sounds right. If you had a French Rail Pass, you must activate it at a French train station. So if you purchased a rail pass reservation in advance, before you arrived in France, and missed the train, you would only be out the reservation fee (10 euro?). You would not be out a pass day because you would not have activated the pass yet.

Thank You Ken for your post-----I appreciate the scenarios you wrote and the "safest" way to work it. It's what I needed to hear.

Sam-that's a great idea! If we go with the rail pass then that's what we'll do. Is there a way to find out if there are reserved seats available with the rail pass before i by the pass?

Thanks you again for the posts. :)

Thank You Both! I appreciate the informative info as it really helped with a decision....we decided to purchase tickets and take a chance. We did buy the refundable up to 2 days before leave time. We thought we could install the SNCF app on our phone and also alter the tickets if we are stuck in the airport. Just didn't want to stand in possibly long lines once we got to the ticket machine and a friend in France offered to buy tickets for us and then send the e-ticket email to print them.
Thanks again! :D

Assume you will miss the train.

Have you done buddy pass before? If not, ask some questions, because I used to get bumped and I had a very high priority. If you have a low priority then it's risky.

http://thegate.boardingarea.com/11-reasons-why-you-may-not-want-to-use-a-buddy-pass-when-traveling/

My airline employee friends tend to be VERY flexible when flying into Europe on their passes. So they go whereever they can get a seat (and by the way Paris is generally not a destination they have much luck with, Amsterdam seems very good for them however) and then work their way to wherever they either want to go or is close

Just last week a guy I run with was saying that last Spring break instead of Europe they wound up in DC because they couldn't get on a flight!

As Ken said, artificial limits have applied in the past for the number of pass holder seat reservations available on any particular TGV departure, and that made it often impossible to secure one on the day of travel. We've heard that those restrictions were relaxed, but still need feedback from anyone who's tried it this year.

Ok thanks for the input....we have flown buddy pass before. The pass is on 28yr seniority so we feel pretty good about it, there is a way to look in advance (days before and up to the day of) and get a good idea of where you stand in the buddy pass seniority line up to the travel day and then we decide from there the best route to take and our friend books it for us. But I have been bumped in the past and understand what you mean. We did purchase a TVG ticket but it is refundable up to 2 days before so we will be able to cancel if it looks impossible to get on the plane. I know it's a gamble but don't want to stand in long ticket lines once we get off the plane at CDG, if possible. If I'm missing something, please let me know. Thanks!