France Travel Answers

many people going to italy have the same problem buying in advance with foreign cards from trenitalia my only suggestion is - you will be wanting to use your card in France so you will know before you go if it will work - yes? if it works i can see no problem using it to buy tickets once you are there if for some strange reason it doesn't work - then you nip to the nearest ATM and withdraw cash to buy the tickets

I want to buy in advance because I have heard the TGV trains sell out and I am travelling with a family of six...

ah - i do see your point - can a travel agent in your country help you? how long have you got in france before you need to catch the train?

I have a little less than 3 months....I have been thinking of a travel agent though to see if they might be able to arrange another form of payment. I am still very interested though if any US residents have had any recent experience getting around this problem.

yes it is always interesting to get other people's experiences i was just trying to let you know that there are many difficulties for americans trying to book european train tickets i haven't been to france so i can't really help if it was Italy I would say don't bother to book if you have a day or two up your sleeves - just do it as soon as you arrive in italy - no problem i can't say that for france i do think though that in europe quite often taking a train is like taking a bus - you don't book ahead for a bus if one is full - then there probably is another one coming soon

Please have a look at this excellent and informative website: http://www.seat61.com/

oh my husband loves that site the man in seat 61

I'm not sure I can be of much help, but let me relate our experience with buying a TGV ticket from Paris to Bern back in 2008. From the best that I can remember I did not have an issue at all. I still have my credit card receipt from that trip and from what I remember I booked a ticket about 60 days in advance. Sometimes if you book it too far in advance I don't think they do accept payments and will channel you through RailEurope. I had absolutely no trouble this past trip booking tickets ahead of time through Trenitalia. People have said they have problems, but I ordered tickets for all my trains about 5 to 6 weeks ahead of time using a regular American credit card and had no problem. I even got some Mini Fares for some of the high speed routes and people told me those were only for European travelers. Obviously not!!

I wonder what card you had. Once while in Italy I suddenly had problems booking on line with an Australian card I had used before. I snatched my husband's card and it was okay.

ah - as he has three months to go for his trip it may be too far away!

Hello I am french, living near Paris. No you can't use your Credit card at an electronic kiosk. (A visa, mastercard with chip & pin is necessary). To book your ticket from US you should purchase with Rail Europe or to call 0033 8 92 35 35 35 from 7 AM to 10 PM or to connect to europeantravelshop.com.au/en.... I'am afraid there is no other option except to ask your french friends to purchase the tickets for you and to sent it to you. Bests regards Marilou

In the past, I have purchased tickets using tgv-europe and the official french site voyages-sncf. You may wish to check out the tutorial at parisbytrain.com/tgv-tickets ... but here are a few additional tips: 1. While you MAY be able to purchase your tickets online with your current card, you SHOULD ask your bank to issue you a replacement chip card ... because as already mentioned, almost all automated kiosks require a chip card (using your PIN in lieu of a signature). Bank ATMs and merchants (including live rail agents) will accept a non-chip card. 2. In most cases, both of the above SNCF sites will accept US and Canadian credit cards... but officially they will only accept US cards. On TGV-Europe, use "ENGLAND" as your current location to remain in English without getting re-directed back to RailEurope. 3. For local TER tickets, the online sites won't necessarily give you any great discount. IF the pricing is "Normal", then you may wish to wait until you're there. 4. If you are successful in purchasing your ticket online, you may retrieve your ticket at a kiosk (WITH a CHIP card) or you may PRE-PRINT a BARCODE ticket at home. I have not done this but officially you can also go to any rail office in France with your (non-chip?) credit card (and ID) with your reservation codes and itinerary to obtain replacement tickets. Here are some reasons why your order may have been rejected: 1. There is a daily limit so for a family of 6, you may have an issue. For single tickets, the limit is actually quite low (50€ to 100€?). If you're successful with one purchase, wait 1-2 days before attempting another purchase. 2. If even one purchase is over the limit, split up your purchases over several days (one parent per day). For TGVs, I believe there is an option to select a seat "near" a previous seat. 3. Super inexpensive iDTGV trains MAY be using its own ticketing website which officially only accepts Visa and Mastercard from : European Union, Andorra, Monaco, Liechtenstein, USA and Switzerland. Perhaps THIS is your problem? Purchase a more expensive regular TGV ticket for that day or you'll have to contact SNCF directly with the attempted reservation code.

Thanks for responses so far....a couple of issues though...first of all chip and pin credit cards are NOT available for US credit cards now and probably not before 2013 at the earliest. The US credit cards assume responsibility for fraudulent and unauthorized use (not the consumer) and the banks that underwrite these credit cards would rather pay for losses rather than spend the billions of dollars to upgrade the system. In the EU the chip and pin system was implemented as a more secure transaction process because the European consumers and merchants do not have the same consumer protection as their American counterparts do when it comes to credit card use. What I would like to know is if I am at a major rail station would I be able to get my prepurchased ticket by going up to a live teller since the kiosk won't work for me? The maximum charge limit per day really makes a reservation very risky. I am travelling with small children and can easily see how I could get boxed out of the reservation process over the course of a week of small bookings especially on a popular TGV route at the height of the tourist season. I would end up with some tickets but not all and then would not be able to get a refund. It is remarkable that the process is so family unfriendly...It is rather ironic that one of the most advanced rail systems in the world has such a clumsy way of handling ticket reservations. Even a simple option to pay by Pay-Pal would be enough to ensure that SNCF gets their money.

I use an American Express card for pre purchases. Again, I have never had an issue with my limited experience. My card obviously is not chip and pin since it is a US issued card. I wouldn't think SNCF has changed their policies since 2008. I would think it is really more of a time issue then anything else. I'm going to look at the SNCF site and see if there is anything that I see here in the U.S.

Yes, you will be able you use your non-chipped card with no problems in the vast majority of European places, and certainly at railway ticket offices. You will *not* be able to use a non-chipped card at any automated machine e.g. rail or bus tickets, petrol pumps, vending machines and so on. Europeans are fully aware that the US does not provide chip & PIN cards and it would be very foolish for hotels, retailers etc not to have provision for this! But you are trying to book tickets for a long time in advance. You may find it easier to do so if you leave it a little while. Even if there are 6 of you I really do not think you need to panic about trains being sold-out, There are plenty of connections per day Paris>Nice.

Just tried a couple of things on line at SNCF. I couldn't book tickets more then 60 days out, but had no problem within that timeframe. Just check back every day or so. A bit frustrating, but that's the way they do business. If you don't want to wait I would go to your nearest travel agent and have them deal with this. It really depends on you. If you want to ease the frustration have a person who deals with travel for a living help you out. You may pay a bit more, but it will ease your frustration. My only issue with not having the chip and pin card is I would have loved to rent a bike in, London, Paris and Barcelona, but couldn't because of the non chip and pin card. You will have no problems at any restaurants which shows the credit cards decals. Also printing out tickets for Trenitalia this trip worked out just great. Didn't even have to use the little yellow boxes to punch my home printed out ticket which had the bar code on the bottom. I also loved having espresso made on the train from Rome to Florence. How cool was that!!

As already stated, most merchants (including live rail agents) will accept a non-chip card. So you will NOT have a problem at the counter... but be forewarned that many smaller train station (evan near tourist sites) have closed and only automated ticket machines remain... or the queue at the airport can be extremely long. I do not know whether the daily limit applies to the first purchase of the day or not. All I know is that I have had rejected authorizations on subsequent purchases in a given day... so you'll just have to try it. It'd be unlikely that your train (2 to 3 months out) will be sold out in the span of a few days. The worst case would be your seats are not together, in which case just go sit in the dining car if all 6 want to be together. The SNCF site will only show trains requiring reservations 30 days out.

Sorry typo... 90 days out

yes indeed for US cardholder is a big issue.I am an American living in France. your computer chip will be recognise you are from the US and automatically direct you to raileurope. Indeed is a monopoly. you can best use the agent in the US dont recall the name now,,maybe some train savvy will come in. Otherwise, you can buy it on site even TGV hardly ever are full, althought august is vacation time here and that area will be fullypacked.You can swing it, only cost five euros to catch the next train if you arrive late, and you can buy the next train if have the time. You can try buy the tickets online choosing to print e ticket or pick up at train station. The voyages-sncf.com french site allows this. best can offer, I know is not easy from abroad as Rail Europe is own mostly by SNCF France ::) Cheers

If you have multiple credit cards, have you tried splitting the tickets into multiple batches and paying each batch with a different card? (I believe you can select seats next to an a seat from a previous session.) Caveat: Although I have successfully purchased iDTGV in the past, this year the authorization system rejected my (chip) card online. So you may want to avoid iDTGV trains for now. Also iDTGV don't allow specific seat selections.

Thanks so much for all of the input!!! Very helpful!Travel agent certainly may be an option as well.

This may help: For advice on how to use the sncf site (which is in French) : tripadvisor.com/Travel-g1871... There is a "Quick Guide" and a more detailed "Step by Step" how-to! I have booked rail tickets on SNCF web site well in advance from Australia using a credit card that "doesn't work in auto pay facilities in France". Have used the option to pick up tickets at departure station. Did so a couple of days prior to departure so as to be famil with station lay out in advance. Note Well..... One must have the exact same credit card used for the booking when picking up the tickets at the manned booth where "swipe card reading facilities" are available. If it's the "total bill too much" problem precluding your booking maybe the advice above to do more than one transaction may be the only answer.

I just tried to book 2 adults and 4 children on a TGV Paris to Nice in August on the SNCF site and had no trouble. Could it be that you are ticking the "English" translation option? If so, it may well direct you to the RailEurope site which of course you don't want and for very good reason. I learnt about all of this when I was booking tickets for myself for my last couple of visits to Europe. What I learnt to do was to make the booking in French and I do not speak anything like fluent French. The booking form in French is really quite easy to read once you get used to it. (A phrase book can be a big help). In any event I have never had any trouble using my Australian Credit Cards when I do it this way. If you are a bit worried about doing it this way, then I think the Travel Agent option is your best bet for peace of mind. Good luck!

...had no trouble navigating the French version...the issue was that my U.S. credit cards were declined...The amount I was trying to charge was around 750 Euros...I notified customer service for my credit cards before the purchase and they sat on the phone while I tried to make the purchase...Neither Chase Visa nor CapitalOne Master card agents saw any electronic attempt from SNCF to make the transaction happen...it was declined on the spot and no electronic query of the US banks occurred.

Maryimelda, what was the total amount you charged and with which credit card?

It sounds like SNCF may have their own process in place above a certain amount if the purchase on a credit card is happening outside their country. They wouldn't advertise these limits because of credit card scams. Sounds like a travel agent is your best resource in this particular case.

Unfortunately, I couldn't go so far as to try the credit card thing because that would mean that I would probably have to buy the tickets. I was just trying to find out if they would accept a booking this far in advance. In the past I have used a MasterCard for amounts of maybe 200-300 Euros.

I posted my reply as a comment earlier in error, I apologize. When we went to Paris last year, I booked our tickets to Lourdes (southern France) through SNCF website in French because I found out that if you want English, TGV will direct you to Rail Europe. Because I do not understand French, I copy and paste the entire screen to an English translator website. I was very successful in doing so and did not have ny problems. Another thing is to call your US credit card company before you buy the tickets and tell them that you are doing an international transaction online purchasing train tickets (mention the estimated amount n both euro and dollars). I hope this helps. Good luck. Read more: heliskier59's Profile

I posted my reply as a comment earlier in error, I apologize. When we went to Paris last year, I booked our tickets to Lourdes (southern France) through SNCF website in French because I found out that if you want English, TGV will direct you to Rail Europe. Because I do not understand French, I copy and paste the entire screen to an English translator website. I was very successful in doing so and did not have ny problems. Another thing is to call your US credit card company before you buy the tickets and tell them that you are doing an international transaction online purchasing train tickets (mention the estimated amount n both euro and dollars). I hope this helps. Good luck. Read more: members.virtualtourist.com/m...

I forgot to mention that once your purchase with SNCF goes through and you have an electronic copy of your tickets sent through the mail, you can go straight to the ticket window at the train station on the day of your departure and TGV will issue the original tickets for boarding. I highly suggest asking your credit card company if they received payment authorization request and ask what is the reason for the decline. Also, you can send SNCF an email in french (use french/english translator on the internet) and they will respond to your questions.