Is it possible to book a one way ticket from Amsterdam central to Paris Nord on www.Thlays.com? I know the date and the specific departure time. I get as far as booking the ticket and can no longer get the information in English for a printable ticket. The ticketless option won't let you enter a home address in the USA. Am I missing something? I was under the impression you could book over the internet and print out tickets, but it looks like that is only possible if you are in England, Netherlands, Belgium or France.
Lynne
Posted by
Chicago, IL
103 posts
I've had some success booking through Belgian Rail: http://www.b-rail.be/main/E/
Click on "Traveling in Europe" in the bottom left corner of the page. Depending on your itinerary, some tickets are print-at-home, some are purchase online and pickup at station, and some are mail-only.
For an upcoming trip, I have one of each, all booked through Belgian rail: printed (Thalys Cologne-Brussels); pickup-at-station (D-bahn Paris-Saarbruecken); and mailed (B-rail/SNCF Bruges-Paris).
Though I don't recommend this for the faint of heart or last-minute planners, I successfully ordered paper tickets through the Thalys website with a "German" address that was clearly in the US. Thalys (SNCF) printed my address on the ticket as follows:
123 xxx Road
60015 Deerfield IL USA
Allemagne
And the post office found me just fine. (Allemagne is French for Germany) I ordered on a Monday night and the tickets arrived 10-11 days later.
The Dutch rail website might be able to help you as well: http://www.nshispeed.nl/en (the first page is in English and the rest is Dutch, however)
Posted by
New Paltz, NY
9100 posts
Clear the cookies out on your browser, go back to the Thalys web site, and when it asks you where you live and/or where you will be picking up the tickets say "France". After that you will be given the option of printing your tickets at home.
Posted by
Minneapolis, MN, USA
8700 posts
Michael's suggestion will work for discount fare tickets. However, standard fare Librys tickets cannot be self-printed.
Posted by
OP
Lakeland
5 posts
Thanks for the replies last week. I went to www.raileurope.com and booked exactly what i wanted, using my full city,state,zipcode,USA address and had the tickets in hand via UPS three days later.
Lynne
Posted by
Ottawa, Canada
4555 posts
Lynne...What did you end up paying, including delivery charge?
Posted by
Denver, CO, USA
59 posts
We ended up booking the Paris -> Amsterdam train direct through EuroStar.com - ended up being cheaper than RailEurope.com