Paris Travel Answers

Hi If you are travelling at a less popular time, your problem is unlikely to be whether there are tickets available, but rather what you will pay for those tickets. There are often excellent TGV deals available if you book well ahead, but these sell out fast. Booking opens 90 days ahead, so to secure the best deal, start perusing their site around June (depending on your proposed travel date). Some of the specials are very special indeed, and a fraction of the standard price, so you need to decide whether a good price or maintaining a high degree of flexibility is more important to you. I travelled between Paris to Avignon return last October, and it was an absolute delight. If this were an option on all the routes I travel, I would never fly again! Regards Cathy

Basically, as with trains in many European countries, if you leave booking until late you will miss out on any potential discounted advance fares. sometimes these are only available online, sometimes you can also buy them at stations (depends on the country, to a large extent, sometimes on the type of ticket). So it's really up to you. I doubt you will have any trouble getting a ticket for the day you want to travel, either on the day you want or a day or so beforehand from the station (if you are already in France), and especially so if you have already found there are lots of daily trains on the route you want to take. But you cannot expect that any discount fares will still be available: they are almost always limited in availability, either by numbers per departure time, by route, by date or simply by length of time purchased in advance.

Try testing it with a purchase date of today or tomorrow and a purchase date of 90 days from now. That should give you some idea of the price differential and what discounts are likely to be available if you book well in advance. Train travel in France is not especially cheap, it would have been cheaper for us to fly from Paris to Marseille than the train, ultimately we had to chop Paris out and we're flying in and out of southern France (Toulouse and Marseille)

Hi Kristi (dabs) raises a very valid point about rail travel sometimes not being cheaper than flying (particularly if you're booking at short notice). Even if there is little to choose between rail and flying in terms of cost, then I would recommend that you also factor in the other attendant benefits. For example, the rail option will usually take you into - or at least close to - the centre of the town you're visiting (not some misleadingly titled far flung airfield, as Ryanair is particularly guilty of) so you don't have to factor in the sometimes considerable cost (and time) of getting to and from the airports to town. Also you spare yourself the ordeal of security procedures that are unfortunately now part and parcel of flying, which can be both time consuming and frustrating. Regards Cathy

Catherine is correct, flying involves other costs such as getting to the airport and a lot more time for security. And usually flying on short notice is not likely to yield great fares either. I mentioned it in case you didn't have to stop in Paris 1st, ultimately since we had just been to Paris we decided to skip it because it was cheaper to fly directly south than to Paris and then take a train down to Marseille. Or maybe you could fly one way and take the train back to Paris or vice versa.

The routes between Paris and the S of F are popular and often book up. We have bought the day before, but when we tried the day of we found the high speed trains sold out. Karl

It's unlikely the trains will be sold out in September. If they are, call a few travel agents. We got caught in the great Iceland volcano shut down of European air space in 2010 and all the trains were sold out. We wandered into a travel agent and she got us two seats to Toulouse (our goal) for the next day. They get them in blocks so often have them even when SNCF is sold out. You will pay for the service though! Check the price differential (as noted in a previous reply) and decide if it is worth that much to you. Also, if you can't get the high speed train (TGV), you will undoubtedly be able to get a slower local train. It will take longer but you will see more so it all works out. Some of the TGV stations do not go into the city center like the older trains do. You can Google your stations and see where they are located. For instance, Avignon is situated well outside the city. They will run a shuttle bus so you aren't stranded; it just takes a bit longer. Enjoy your trip to France.

There is a very good overview of the different types of TGV tickets, and their prices here: http://www.tgv.com/en/tgv-pricing Many types of ticket allow you to rebook for free or for a small fee under certain conditions. What I often suggest to people not sure when they want to travel is to book the last train of the day. You can easily move your departure forward.

Yes it is cheaper in advance for example for Marseille if I book for tomorrow the most expensive ticket are 120€ and less expensive 85€ (if I book well in advance with iDTGV you can get it for 25€). I don't know what is your destination but in the example of Marseille there is train about every 30min so if you are flexible on your schedule I guess you can always find one on the last minute (but expect it to be more expensive than if book well in advance)

It is important to realise that seat reservation is compulsory on all TGV high speed trains in France and, unlike for example in UK or Germany, a train can be sold out. If you walk up to the station and the train you want is full, then you have to buy a ticket for the next train with available seats. This has happened to me when my travel plans were unavoidably changed at the last moment. Your trip might also co-incide with some major event you know nothing about and suddenly all the trains are full. I know people who, when not sure of the exact date or time of travel, buy for example 3 x 25 Euro tickets for the same journey on different trains/dates. This is cheaper than buying one 125 Euro ticket on the day. They just chuck away the unused tickets, but save 50 Euros. The very cheapest advance purchase tickets are often non-refundable and non-exchangeable, so do read any small print carefully.