Thalys - Amsterdam to Paris

Purchase directly from www.thalys.com. You can get advance fares for only a fraction of what Rail Europe is quoting. Tell the site you are a resident of France, and picking up your tickets in France. After that you can print your tickets at home.

The only tickets you can print yourself are advance purchase discount fares like Smilys (roundtrip--35€ each way) and Mini (one-way for 25€). To get a Smilys fare, you must book a return date; but it's cheaper than a standard single (one-way) fare. Book an arbitrary return date and throw away the unused portion. To have any chance of getting either a Mini or Smilys, book ASAP (up to 90 days allowed).

If you don't succeed, you can always buy a standard Librys ticket in Amsterdam for 105€ which is still cheaper than booking through RailEurope.

Thalys website says they do not sell the mini with the print at home option.

Play around with it a little bit. There is one page that is a bit confusing: you are given the option of picking up your tickets or print them out at home. In this case printing them at home means an e-tickets stored on a European cell phone (it's a language/translation error). Choose pick up your tickets- you will then be given the option of printing them out at home.

Go to the French national rail site, voyages-sncf.com, and choose their Flash fare, 33 Euro one-way and printable at home. Do NOT select ticket insurance. The ticket is non refundable and non changeable.

Thanks for looking Andrea. However, I could not get the page you pasted to work. Here is a screen shot of the prices I get when I enter France as my pick up country: http://aycu11.webshots.com/image/43810/2003614578560905268_rs.jpg
When I select the Netherlands as my pickup country I get this: http://aycu32.webshots.com/image/44791/2004068953827671313_rs.jpg
which appears to have the "mini" fare, but if you select it, it kicks you back to a page in Dutch.

Michael Schneider's tip seems to work the best. However, the Netherlands and Belgium version of the site appear to revert to Dutch during the purchasing screens. The French and German versions work fine, but they were down last night when I tried to purchase tickets, and now the tickets are sold out. Thanks for the responses guys.

I had this same problem last week (see board). But, it's not a problem at all! OK, if you book far enough in advance, 90 days, you can get the 25 euro Mini. Choose "France" as your country to pick up the tickets, even though you are leaving from Amsterdam. This will keep the site in English. Then, when you purchase, you will have an option to have the tickets mailed to you, free of charge, from France. I ordered last week and got my tickets in the mail yesterday :)

Norm,

I thought I knew my way around the SNCF site fairly well, but I don't see a Flash fare. How do I find it?

Geoff,

If saving money is more important than comfort, you can take a Eurolines coach. There are several each day, including one overnight run which would save you the cost of a night in a hotel. Go to www.eurolines.com.

Andrea....You've had great good luck! Every time I bring up the mail to home option, it defaults to France as the country (even in the mail to another address option). How did you manage to convince it to allow you to change the country, especially when selecting France? As an added bonus though, even tho the Thalys website says you can't print out Mini fares at home....you can!

Tim....voyages-sncf.com, the French language version.

Norm

Do you mean when you fill in your mailing address? I just ignored the format and put my city and state in the same mailing line :) Everything came through OK...did I answer your question correctly, though?

I was looking for one-way from Amsterdam to Paris. This was not a possibility on the "French Voyages" site using the flash fare. The flash fare appears to work from the Country you are logged in at. So, that won't work for me. I could have used Thalys and got the mini fare, if: 1) I could understand Dutch or 2) The French and German sites were not down last night. Due to this, I am now past the 90 days I need, and therefore this price is unavailable to me. I'll probably drop the $200 for two tickets on Raileurope. Thanks everyone.

Geoff

When are you leaving?

I leave May 19

Geoff

There is a 25 euro mini available for that date; I'll post the link, but it will probably make you reenter the info. Choose France as your pickup country and then have them mailed to you in the US.

http://agence.ravel.tm.fr/dynamic/_SvTermProposals?_TMS=1203536871009&_DLG=SvTermProposals&_LANG=UK&_AGENCY=RATH&_CMD=processJSP&JSP=gestedit%2Fravel%2Flayout%2Fpurchase%2Fquotation%2Fjourney%2FoutwardJourneyProposal.jsp

Even though you are departing from Amsterdam, always tell the site you are picking up in France. This is the only way you can print your ticket at home, and get the pages in english. Clear the cookies out in your browser and try it again.

1) thalys.com
2) France: English (language)
3)departing Amsterdam, going to Paris, May 19th (book)
4)Paper Ticket: France (book)
5) Choose outward journey
6) Confirm
7) Receive your ticket free by post
8) When filling out address, just use the extra address box, under your street address, and do your city, state, zip, and country. Even though you do repeat some of those answers later :)

Andrea....you got very lucky then...someone must have recognized the address as American and redirected it. As you may notice, the page defaults to France as the county. So your address would read "Andrea XXXX, 123 Ash street, Amarillo, Texas, 12345, FRANCE." No spot for USA. Being that we in North America are supposed to purchase from Rail Europe, I don't know if I'd rely upon some sympathetic SNCF worker to redirect it!:)

At step 7, there should also be an option to "Print your ticket yourself to save time". It's right above "Receive your ticket free by post".

Geoff,

I found a Mini fare for a departure after 18:00 on 19 May. I left France as the default country. If I had proceeded with booking, I would have been able to print my ticket.

It would not allow me to print my Mini from home...bummer.

Geoff

Pretty close :) but actually, the mailing address read "Andrea XXXX, 123 Ash street, Amarillo, Texas,USA 12345, FRANCE." So, someone nice did ignore the double country listing and sent it on to Texas in the USA.

hi, im coming from amsterdam and i'm still confused as to how to get online tickets going to paris. is thalys the fastest train to paris? website is confusing..can anyone please help me on how to do it step by step? please...important, im coming from asia, first time to travel in europe... i also tried to putchase online but again it wants a european address..

Clear the cookies out on your browser, and go back to www.thalys.com When the site asks you where your live and/or where you will be picking up your tickets, always say "France". After that you will be able to purchase tickets and print them out at home.

1. Go to Dutch train site. Click the little flag on the upper right hand corner to change it to English.
   
2. Your departure station: Amsterdam Centraal. Arrival station: Paris Nord.
3. To select departure/arrival date, change the drop down dates. Purchase tickets early to save money. If it is a one-way trip, change "Return" to "One way" under Trains.
4. If you are under 26, change "Adults" to "Youths." If you are 60 or over, select that option.
5. Click "Search train tickets."
6. Select the radio button next to your desired departure time. Green=lowest fares, non-refundable and non-exchangeable. If you want more flexible tickets, select the Blue or the Purple option under "Fare Conditions Outbound Trip." These exchangeable tickets cannot be printed at home.
7. Click "Check Availability" near the bottom right corner.
8. On the next page, double check your travel details. For preferred method of delivery, select "Home print" if you want to print your tickets at home. They will e-mail you a link to the tickets. Select "Ticket machine" if you want to pick up tickets at the Amsterdam station.
9. Choose your preferred method of payment.

1. Enter your contact details. Surname=Last name. For Home print, enter your details again in the section on the right. Make sure the details match your passport EXACTLY. Date of birth format: DD-MM-YYYY. For ticket machine print, you will need to create a pick up code. Enter it twice. Along with this code, you will need the booking code (contained in your confirmation e-mail) to retrieve the tickets.
2. Check the box at the bottom to agree with the terms and conditions.
3. Choose a payment method.
4. Enter payment details. Click "Submit."
5. The confirmation page will display. Check your e-mail for more details. Tell me if you have any problems.

Martine....Great to see than NL Railways has upgraded their website so well...thanks for that! Too bad they don't have it integrated into the Thalys website yet. But at least it gives you the option of taking an IC to Brussels and switching to the Thalys there, saving a bit of cash.

hi martine and everyone.. i checked the site you gave and i found the fare very expensive! it's 205.6 euro! is that really the cheapest? thanks for help!

Maria,

The standard 2nd class fare is €105. Depending upon seat availability and how far in advance you book online, there are several cheaper fares, including one as low as €25.