TGV Ticket Delivery Options

Kitty what site are you on buying tickets. I went on TGV and see tickets for roughly your dates, non refundable Prems,, going for 39 euros, and I see several ticketing option. Re you card,, sorry, my cc has a pin, can't you just go to your bank and get a pin on your credit card,, maybe its difficult in States,, its easy to do here. It is not unusual if you order a ticket to be picked up at station that you MUST have the exact card that you booked it with you, they are quite strict about that when booking eurostar and i imagine it is the same with most other train tickets.

If you book at either tgv-europe.com (French rail) or bahn.de (German Rail), you can print an e-ticket. Call your credit card company again. You should be able to get a PIN. Having one would allow you to use the card to withdraw money from an ATM just like you do with a debit card. However, except in an emergency, don't use your credit card to get cash. Your transaction will be treated as a cash advance and you'll pay interest on it from day one.

I have tried to buy tickets from both tgv-europe.com and bahn.de. It looks like bahn.de will let me do e-ticket, but they say it's too early to buy the ticket. I can buy the ticket on tgv-europe.com, but they do not give me an e-ticket delivery option... whether I say I want delivery in Canada, Great Britain, or France. If I pick up the tickets in a French train station, not using an automatic machine, could the PIN they also refer to as "secret code" be my card's "secure code"? My card has a secure code that is not 4 digits..I think it has to be at least 8...it's what I would have to use on their mail option. Any ideas of other things to try to get an e-ticket option to appear? I saw it at tgv-europe.com the day before I tried to reserve for delivery in Great Britain, when it was too early to buy and I put in a date just a day or 2 earlier to see how the system worked. Then when I went to use the site yesterday to buy, the e-ticket option was not there. Alternatively, any idea how much behind bahn.de is in offering the ticket? The train I want is not even offered on RailEurope if I say delivery in the USA.

Kitty I don't see where you have told us when you are traveling. The Bahn does not have a lag, it just can't sell tickets before they have been released for sale? Are you going soon?

Nigel, I am planning way ahead. June 21. The tickets can be purchased on tgv already, but it may be too early overall. I don't mind picking them up in the station, but since I don't have a PIN and my credit card company knows nothing about one I am afraid to that delivery option. We are going from London to Paris several days before, so I would be in Paris and have a few days to pick them up (like when I am arriving on Eurostar...which I booked with no problem a month ago). Maybe if I wait a day or so I can get them on bahn. It just makes me a little nervous that they can be bought on tgv already. It doesn't seem that their prices jump up like Eurostars do, though. Thanks to you and everyone else for working with me! You guys are really very nice to have around!! Kitty

As of a few minutes ago I could have booked an e-ticket for 21 June on tgv-europe.com. The latest date I could have booked on bahn.de was 20 June.

Wonder why I can't do it on tgv? For grins, I checked USA and got to RailEurope. And the train I wanted was listed! So I said....hmmm.... they say I can do e-ticket and it costs $25 extra at yesterday's exchange rate (including a handling fee)...so I went for it to have it done. Did everything... credit card info...and hit "Let's do it".... Got a message"We are currently unable to complete the booking for one or more products in your cart. We are attempting to issue your tickets as requested. If we are unable to, we will contact you to propose alternate options....within two business days." So much for paying more to have it done! Guess I must sit and wait. Anyone ever have this happen? Maybe it really is too early and TGV would have done the same thing if I'd gone that far....

Oops. I should mention that I'm trying to buy 4 tickets, so it's $25 extra divided by 4 or only $6-7 per ticket.

I have no idea why booking on tgv-europe.com would have worked for me but not for you. Germany is six hours ahead of you. Wait until after 6:00 p.m. your time today when it will be after midnight in Germany and book your e-ticket on bahn.de.

As I read my message from RailEurope, they are proceeding to try to book me and will charge my card if they can. In other words, they are not going to contact me for credit card authorization again unless they cannot get it...and they may not know that for 2 days. I'm thinking it may be best to wait the 2 days, and then do bahn.de if RailEurope can't get it. If I try to cancel the order through my credit card company I don't know what will happen. A non-refundable fare that may or may not get confirmed....??? Surely if I wait the 2 days, my credit card company will get me out of the deal if it can't be booked as I was ordering. (Surely??! Fingers crossed.) And after this mess, I get to start looking into renting a car! Maybe I'll see you on another Helpline topic in a day or two. If you have any advice at the gitgo, please send me a message. We'll never know why tgv wouldn't list e-ticket as an option for me, as it had the day before. I erased all cookies, I thought. Then I went and got my daughter's laptop and tried with that in case I had missed something. I appreciate having someone to bounce things off of. Thanks so much. I'll let you know how it works out. Oh, well... after all of this, trains will probably go on strike when we're there!

Oh! Those web sites can be very annoying. But also make sure that your credit card company knows that you are buying tickets and making reservations overseas. When we tried buying some british airway tickets it took all night long to get the credit card working again. Yikes!

Thanks, Suz, I did call my credit card company last night, and they have not yet been contacted by Rail Europe. And I had called them before I ordered to let them know that I am pre-booking for my trip in June and gave them my June dates. They had blocked my purchase or Eurostar a month ago, but I was able to clear that up in a matter of minutes with a phone call. Thanks for passing along the tip. I might have forgotten about that! Still no word from RailEurope, and I could now buy on bahn.de. My credit card company says they cannot block the charge from RailEurope even though it hasn't yet been submitted. They can only refute after it's posted. And I did authorize a nonrefundable charge. So I cannot abandon that order to order from bahn.de. It appears that now I've paid more for no reason! Should have listened to the folks who didn't like being diverted to RailEurope. But the webiste was working so smoothly.....

Yay! I received the email with the print-at-home tickets attached. All seems fine. I think the problem was that I was early and they weren't really selling the tickets yet...taking orders a day early or some such. I did keep checking the site yesterday and they were still offering the tickets, even though they couldn't deliver. I got an automated delivery just moments ago. Whew!

Congratulations! Problem solved.

For other potential users of www.tgv-europe.com -- you should choose any country EXCEPT United States when asked for location etc. A frequent poster on another board uses Antarctica, tongue-in-cheek I assume. It makes no difference for delivery of tickets, etc.
Specifying US will bump you to RailEurope. Apparently SNCF, the French rail system, is part owner of RailEurope.

Actually, other than the delay, I have had no trouble with Rail Europe. It cost me 1% more, but then there was no foreign exchange fee charged by my bank so that canceled out. I was able to print the tickets at home and did not have to pay for shipping. Regarding the delay, customer service responded that the computer connection was messed up. I don't know, but it was only a one-day delay. I tried many other countries first, but could not get ANY of them to let me print out a ticket -- Canada, Great Britain, South Africa, France, Japan. Since the US site now lets you print e-tickets, it's really not a bad deal...assuming no forex charge shows up...hasn't yet, the charge was a week ago, and it's shown up right away on my foreign charges.