I'm having trouble purchasing and reserving a ticket and seat for a one way ticket from Paris CDG airport to St. Jean Pied de Port in southern France. I don't know how to do this without being directed to Rail Europe. I live in the US. I'll be traveling in early June and have an itinerary that I need to keep beginning in Southern France the day after I fly to France. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Posted by
Tresana, Highlands Ranch, CO, USA
23572 posts
Indicate that you home base is England and that you will pick up the ticket.
Posted by
New York, NY, USA
11294 posts
First call your credit card company and tell them you will be making foreign transactions, so they are not blocked. Go to http://www.tgv-europe.com/. Choose Great Britain as your country, and France as your ticket collection country. Refuse to be redirected to Rail Europe. If you are not able to do this, clear your cookies and browser history and try again. If you can "print at home," choose this. You'll get an e-mail with a PDF attachment, which is your ticket. It will say you need A4 paper, but 8.5 x 11 works fine. You show this printout along with your passport to the conductor, and you're set. You can print as many copies as you like (being the nervous type, I like to have lots of extras, in various suitcases, moneybelt, etc). If you can't print at home, choose "pick up at a French Station." Do not choose "pick up at a ticket machine" unless you have a chip and pin credit card; swipe cards are not accepted at machines. To pick up your ticket, you will need the ticket number and (VERY IMPORTANT) the credit card you used to book the ticket (even if it's expired in the meantime).
Posted by
Boston
4132 posts
And finally: Bring that credit card with you to the station.
Posted by
OP
Greenfield, MA, United States
2 posts
Thanks to all who have responded. Even when I clear history, if I put in my country as Great Britain I'm still redirected to Rail Europe. There doesn't seem to be a way to refuse it. When I put my country as Slovenia, I could process the ticket, but my credit card payment is rejected. When I called my credit card company they said they are not receiving any communication from sncf, so they don't know why the payment is rejected. This is frustrating.
Posted by
Texan in CA
4412 posts
When you use 'Great Britain', does a box pop up offering to continue in Pounds or in Euro? You have to click on the second button (the automatic Rail Europe default is highlighted). EDIT: I also suppose that if you put any other country besides USA, Great Britain, and Canada (??? I can't remember if you have trouble with Rail Europe, too.) you won't have to see that pop-up box...
Posted by
Windsor, Ontario, Canada
4085 posts
You can choose practically any country to avoid the bump. Try Antarctica, which isn't a country and has no railroad and no permanent population. But you will probably have to make the choice on two separate pages.
Posted by
Toledo, Ohio, US
11613 posts
I just bought my first SNCF ticket online with no problem, got the acknowledgement email immediately and the e-ticket an hour later. This is what I did: I went to the Railpasses tab on this site, then the ticket costs page and scrolled down to the TVG link in the France bullet point. I chose Vatican as my home country and then the e-ticket option. Then followed the prompts to purchase the ticket. Once I got the e-ticket I printed it out. I did not notify my bank ahead of time, although I will let them know before I leave that I will be making purchases overseas (and give them travel dates). If you haven't used European calendars before, note tha the formula is day/month/year (use the calendar icon), so your ticket for July 1 will read 01-07-2013.
Posted by
near Ringwood, Hampshire, UK
521 posts
As Eileen said, there should be a pop-up box which asks if you want to go to the Rail Europe site, or stay on tgv-europe and pay in Euros. If you don't see that box then you may have a pop-up blocker enabled. That happened to me, and I couldn't work out how to stay on tgv-europe, but as soon as I disabled my pop-up blocker it all became clear. To avoid these problems you could use www.capitainetrain.com. It accesses the SNCF booking system, offers the same trains at the same prices, and it doesn't attempt to redirect you anywhere. I haven't used it yet myself, but I've seen The Man in Seat 61 suggest it, so that's good enough for me. The only problem is the site is only in French, but you could use the Google Chrome browser with automatic translation switched on. Even with my schoolboy French I manage to navigate it without translation, because it's very simple. There are lots of positive reports of Capitaine Train on this thread on Fodors - http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/sncf-train-ticket-online-booking-payment-difficulty.cfm