TGV-Europe new rules?

Nancy....what routing and dates were you using? And what options did it give you?

Nancy - I just simulated booking tickets Paris - Reims. I selected Great Britian for your country. I was given three options for ticket recovery.

1) e-ticket : Print your e-ticket confirmation or cancel your journey online until the departure of your train, according to your tariff.

2) Collection from an Automatic Ticket Machine : Collect your ticket from an automatic ticket machine with the bank card used for the payment.

3) Delivery free by post : Receive your ticket free by post

Maybe you just caught the site on a bad day? ;)

How do you say "scum" in French?

Nancy...I will assume that one of the options was to get an e-ticket. I think this was discussed a couple of months ago, that SNCF seems to be altering slightly and expanding their "print at home" tickets. They argue they're more flexible that print at homes because you can see refunds and changes without submitting the physical printout....although you still print out your e-ticket. However, if you buy a non-refundable ticket, that's a moot point. It seems to be print at homes being expanded to more than just PREMs, and being rebranded at the same time.
It also appears to be a way to cut down on the lineups at ticket windows so the staff are serving new customers, rather than simply printing out tickets for those who have already purchased.
Click here to read more.

I want two tickets from Villefranche-sur-mer to Milan Centrale (via Ventigiglia) on June 5. There is an option for two 1st class senior tickets for €74.80. When I click on that, I get this message: "The registered delivery option has been temporarily disactivated. Therefore, this option will not be proposed." The only option I'm given is "Delivery by post" and the only address option is for Great Britain. I've purchased quite a few tickets on this site in the past two years and I've always had the option to retrieve them at a train station. These tickets are coming up earlier than usual and, maybe, there's some issue with that. I'll try the Slovakia/Botswana route! Ironically, Joel, I also need tickets from CDG to Reims (12:52 departure) on May 23, but they're not available yet.

I've run across this occasionally in the past, mostly with journeys from southern France into Italy. On your trip, it's not continuous on the same train across the border....you're taking a second-class commuter train to Ventimiglia, then transferring to an Italian train. I guess the SNCF figures foreigners aren't going to make this journey.
You CAN make the booking including station pickup at the French language site at http://www.voyages-sncf.com . The site looks a lot like the English version...and you can use something like translate.google.com to translate the stuff you don't understand...or post it back here and we'll try to help.

I didn't have any luck using Botswana and I have been religiously removing cookies all throughout this. Just tried the SNCF site, but I got an error message. Will let it rest for a while and try again later. I'm hoping that the problem is only going to be with this Italian segment and that the other trips I want to book will work as usual. Thanks for all of your responses! What a great group!!!

The major routes still offer station pickup, or the new e-ticket. With this particular route, you can try running an SNCF window alongside a TGV-Europe window and just follow along....it should be identical.

I just bought the tickets on the SNCF site with a translation window open. It was a little stressful due to imprecise translations, but it did work. Thanks again for all of your suggestions!

Bravo!!

I tried today to do a dummy ticket from CDG 2 TGV to Reims for May 9 on the SNCF site and the only retrieval options are by mail (to GB) or by machine that will not accept credit cards such as Am Ex that don't have the chip. I cleared all of the tgv cookies and tried several times with no luck. Any new suggestions?

Nancy,

Even though your credit card won't work in the ticket machine, choose that option anyway. Although picking up your ticket at a ticket window isn't listed in this particular case, it's always possible to do that.

Tim, I thought that might be the case. This process requires several "leaps of faith," but I'm determined not to let Rail Europe win! Thanks so much.

Nancy.,...I just did a similar dummy booking for the 10:41 AM trip on 9 May at TGV-Europe, and got the three options including the retrieval at a French station. Which time slot were you selecting? This journey is half TGV and have second-class train (about half an hour each), so you could always select the second-class PREMs ticket, which you can print out at home (and save yourself 6 euro per tickets)....or if available, the first class PREMs, again printable at home.

Norm, I would definitely choose the prems option as that would completely solve my problem (and save money). I chose a non-prems option on my dummy tickets just to see what choices I would get. I know I'm a little obsessive about this, but I want to be prepared for whatever might come up when the tickets I want go on sale. Even though I've bought quite a few French train tickets, and always 2-3 months ahead of time, I've never gotten the prems option. Maybe this will be my lucky year! Thanks again.

I can confirm what Nancy's seeing. I tried the same thing - a dummy booking from Italy into France - and the only option I could get on tgv-europe was send by post. On voyages.sncf, I could only get send by mail or pick up at the station or a boutique. On both sites, I was offered the PREMS rate for the trip. Neither site let me print the ticket or select e-tickets, which is my preference. Also, can they not figure out that if your trip starts in Italy, it's tough to pick up the ticket at a French station?

I hope it is a dispute with the Italians, as some have suggested, not a change in site policy. That will make buying advance tickets very difficult.

I don't know about that theory, though. I just tried Paris to Germany, with the same results - no e-ticket or print at home options were offered.

Nancy's issues were a little different....not being able to find the "pick up at station" option from southern France into Italy, and from Paris to Reims. There are still PREMs printable tickets available on many routes. However, those heading outside the country are usually not printable if you have to change trains at or across the border. Again, you can always pick up your tickets at the station if you choose the pickup option, or if you choose the retrieval from a machine.

Nelly,

In your scenario the issue is not the current dispute between SNCF and Trenitalia. It has been true for a long time that if you order tickets on tgv-europe.com for a train that departs from a country other than France, then you must receive the tickets by mail. As illogical as it obviously is, tickets you book on tgv-europe.com cannot be picked up at a train station in any country other than France, not just Italy.

Booking on voyages-sncf.com and picking up the tickets at a station in France will only work if you'll be in France before you go to Italy and then will return to France by train.

You cannot print Prem's tickets for international routes (like the Paris-Germany route you tried). Self printing, when available, is only for routes entirely within France.

sorry, didn't mean to hijack Nancy's thread. I thought it was general delivery issues, should have read more carefully. But thanks for the info, Tim, it was extremely useful to me as I had been counting on printing the tickets myself. Off to develop a Plan B.

One last comment - Tim, I took your advice and booked tickets from CDG to Reims, selecting the "Collect ticket from an automatic ticket machine" option. The second sentence on their confirmation email was "You may pick-up this item in a SNCF boutique or in a train station." Would have been nice if they had said that on the order form, but all is well. Thanks, Tim!