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My Experience booking French and Belgian train tickets -

My Experience booking French and Belgian train tickets -

Old Feb 23rd, 2014, 05:10 AM
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My Experience booking French and Belgian train tickets -

Back in 2002, I went online at sncf and booked TGV tickets (Paris-Arras) easily. Not so this time. Notwithstanding that we live in an era of computers and the EU, booking train tickets in Europe is becoming stupidly complicated for North Americans.
Acknowledgement: Many thanks to the man in seat 61 (he runs seat61.com) from whom I learned about capitainetraine dot com and much more.

Okay, now for our itinerary.

Origin: CDG airport (Paris, France)
Leg 1: CDG to Bruges, Belgium (TGV, InterCity including border crossing)
Leg 2. Bruges to Antwerp, Belgium (InterCity, no border crossing)
Leg 3. Antwerp to (Schiphol/Amsterdam), the Netherlands (THALYS, border crossing)

Leg 1. You can route Paris-Bruges via either Brussels or Lille. We chose Lille for various reasons (see below.) Paris-Lille will always be a TGV train (high speed train operated solely by French rail, sncf) and Paris-Brussels will be a TGV train if it originates in CDG, and a THALYS train if it originates in downtown Paris, i.e. Paris Gare du Nord (literally, north station.) Note you can connect Gare du Nord and CDG with the local "RER" train.

How we booked it: We booked and printed CDG-Lille using capitainetrain. We did not get a flag from our CC company when we did this (possibly because the amount was not large) but I ended up having to call our CC company anyway because of the fiasco with my attempt to buy the tickets on sncf (Got as far as punching in my CC details, hit the purchase button - and the site bombed. So I had to find out if the purchase somehow got debited from my CC account, even though of course I had no tickets. I also at the same time confirmed that the capitainetrain purchase was legit. Later on, when I used b-europe.com, I got an automated call from my CC bank, and had to follow up and explain that that too was a legit purchase.)

Important: if you are using capitainetrain to book a THALYS train, read the following:

https://help.capitainetrain.com/c4/q...purchases.html

It explains that capitainetrain can only book 'collect at station' tickets for THALYS trains - UNLESS you sign up for a Thalys 'TheCard' (free) in which case you can get paperless tickets (Thalys brands it as Ticketless). This means your tickets are stored on your Thalys TheCard and you are sent an ticket confirmation email which you can use as a substitute ticket. (I think what happens is, you sign up for TheCard, get a number, make a first booking quoting that number, and then they send you TheCard. By snail mail. (

Oh, good grief. All the benefits of the modern age - providing you wait for 'TheCard' to arrive in North America by nineteenth-century snail mail first. I didn't go that route. It's a conspiracy, I tell you. But hardly capitainetrain's fault. Anyway, if you do go that route, be sure to read the above blog post if you want to use capitainetrain for Thalys tickets.
(to be continued)
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Old Feb 23rd, 2014, 05:13 AM
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(continued from first post)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch: So now we have Paris-Lille TGV tickets. For whatever reason, capitainetrain cannot sell us tickets Lille-Bruges. This is a simple Intercity route that requires no advance reservation. Theoretically it can be booked on b-europe dot com, the site of Belgian rail, but when you go to check out, you cannot get digital homeprint, (print at home tickets) only pick up at (Belgian) station tickets. A tad awkward since if I was in a position to pick up tickets in Belgium, I wouldn't need to take a train to Belgium in the first place. And there's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza.... Or I can go for the 'ticketless' option which means waiting for snail mail to deliver my oh-so-futuristic 'TheCard'. I don't want to play in this insane sandbox, so:

I have decided to live life on the wild side and wait to buy the Lille-Bruges Intercity ticket at CDG while waiting for our CDG-Lille TGV, if possible - or buy the ticket on arrival in Lille (which will probably mean taking a later train out of Lille than I'd like, but there it is.) I could book that portion of the leg on raileurope, but I refuse to pay booking fees (and possible delivery fees) for a simple Intercity train which can't be reserved. Call me stubborn.

Leg 2. Bruges to Antwerp, Belgium. There are various ways to do this: Buy an Intercity ticket when you get to Bruges, or get an Any Belgian Station (ABS) option as part of a THALYS train Antwerp to Schiphol/Amsterdam.

The Intercity choice can be slightly cheaper to very much cheaper, but it will involve a couple of transfers and a journey longer by about an hour or so. Since we found a good ABS fare, we decided to combine the purchase for legs 2 and 3. Our ticket allows us one journey from any Belgian station (Bruges) which can be the day before the departure of the THALYS train from Antwerp to Amsterdam. I'm assuming no more than 24 hours before, which may not be true. Either way, it is no biggie - the portion Bruges-Gent-Antwerp is on an Intercity train.

Okay, so how did we book the THALYS portion (This goes for those going out of Brussels to various points France or Belgium-The Netherlands.)

That was easy. Hop on b-europe.com, Belgian(English) - since this trip originates in Belgium - and after selecting your journey, choose 'digital homeprint' option and print them out.

I hope this has been of some use. Note that I have had to use three different methods of purchasing tickets - two for the first leg, and one for the next two legs. I am not normally a conspiracy theorist, but this time I KNOW there's a conspiracy going on and it's EVIL I TELL YOU, EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL EVIL!!!!!! (Sue looks around with wild mad-woman eyes.)

Thank you. I feel much better now. Good luck with your own ticket purchases.

By the way, I recently told a first-timer to Europe to just bite the bullet and buy his CDG-Amsterdam ticket with Raileurope. It's galling, but it is simpler and saves time.
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Old Feb 23rd, 2014, 06:03 AM
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One final note: If you use the b-europe.com site to book Paris-Bruges, it does seem fairly straightforward IF you use the Belgian-French version of the site. You can get digital homeprint tickets - providing you accept that you can only start your journey in Paris Nord, and provided you take a THALYS train journey from Paris Nord to Brussels (which is a headache for those wanting to commence their journey direct from CDG as you then have to buy RER tickets to Paris Nord and schlepp through Paris Gare du Nord, not my favourite station).

Note you can't get a digital homeprint for a journey routing TGV Paris Nord to Lille, IC to Bruges, so far as I can tell, you can only opt to pick up the tickets at the station- ha ha, only Belgian stations, as far as I can tell. Postal service is only to Belgium and Luxembourg addresses, as well.
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Old Feb 23rd, 2014, 06:52 AM
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marking for later digestion of great info
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Old Feb 23rd, 2014, 08:49 AM
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Sue, great stuff.

I don't have a printer at home so enjoy picking up the tickets at the station. Stil it can be frustrating.
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Old Feb 23rd, 2014, 09:07 AM
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What a nightmare. Who says that train travel is easier today ? Not. Think we'll rent a car.
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Old Feb 23rd, 2014, 09:52 AM
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It is a pain, isn't it? Just thought I'd chime in that we did the Paris-Lille-Bruges trip two summers ago, and buying the Lille-Bruges ticket was a snap at the Lille station. YMMV, but it took about 10 minutes and we hopped right on the train we wanted. Hope your trip goes smoothly--Bruges is very worth the effort.
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Old Feb 23rd, 2014, 10:05 AM
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If you want or need to take a Thalys ticket, why not download the App and get your ticket on your mobile phone (works for ticket inspection also without internet connection)? Or does that not work with your US credit cards?
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Old Feb 23rd, 2014, 11:18 AM
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Bilbo

Then you will not be happy to hear that " SNCF has informed [Capitainetrain] of their intention to phase out collect-at-station tickets completely in favour of the E-ticket." The problem of pick up at station tickets is that people were booking oh, say, Amsterdam-Antwerp on capitainetrain, which can only sell pick up at station tickets in respect of stations in FRANCE. Bit of a problem there.... it makes sense only for France residents to make such a booking (why, I don't know - perhaps as half of a double 1 way booking.) That's why capitainetrain is pushing the ticketless option to avoid that kind of error.

And as I pointed out, b-europe.com can only offer pick-up-at station option in respect of stations in BELGIUM, so for journeys that one can't print out at home (Lille-Bruges) that's a bit of a problem, for the same reason. Again, obviously something designed to suit only the needs of Belgium residents.

Bedar

The main thing to remember is that if you're crossing a Belgian border at any point, THALYS is your friend and is easy to book and to print out. It only gets complex if you want to sidestep the system's marketing bias, which I did. I want to depart from CDG, and not from Paris Nord. The schedules and transfer points also suited me better. But my journey involves mixing the TGV, a purely French network, with crossing into Belgium and furthermore, to a point other than Brussels. Whereas the system is designed to steer travellers to THALYS trains for such a journey, no doubt because having invested in that expensive network, Belgium and the Netherlands need to get the revenue to support it from seat sales.

Anyway my desires are in contrast to most travelers, who will be quite happy to depart from Paris proper. For most travelers wishing to go to Belgium (or from Belgium to France), it is a simple matter to book and print out at home, THALYS tickets on b-europe. But one must choose the B-europe French site for Thalys journeys starting in Paris, and the B-europe Belgium-(English) site for Thalys journeys originating in Belgium, if one wants the print at home option.

THALYS is not a bad train - it is a fast, state of the art high speed train. It isn't even necessarily that much more expensive than the alternatives if you shop carefully. And you can get an ABS fare so as to go onward to, or depart from (example) Bruges via Brussels.

For simplicity, you can go on Raileurope. A car is fine - but from what I've heard of Bruges, it is not exactly car-friendly. Back in the middle ages folks didn't have enough foresight to plan for car parking...

But yes, if you want to take the TGV out of CDG and thence onward to somewhere other than Lille or Brussels, it is bit inconvenient. But thanks to Mango, I feel a bit better about the Lille-Bruges section.

Cowboy1968

THALYS tickets aren't the problem especially if one uses digital homeprint, as I explained above. By the way I don't have a phone - well, okay, I do, but not one that would work in Europe and in fact, it's so old it barely works here. I did just get an ipod Touch, which supposedly does allow the function you describe (it's an iPhone without the phone), but I am still learning how to use the device as I just got it.

I am also still working on trying to understand what TheCard is really about - at first I thought it was just a 'Frequent Flyer' type program (which it is) but it sounds more like an actual loadable card -- I think. But I think you are right - reloadable cards or phone apps are the way of the future, whether we want it or not.
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Old Feb 23rd, 2014, 11:44 AM
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One last thing.

I should have cautioned that my advance purchases consist solely of non-refundable tickets. There is less of an issue with CC fraud, I think, with such tickets (it is hard to see how anyone could fraudulently generate a cash stream, with a non-refundable ticket.) But I can't be sure that rigourous anti-fraud measures were the reason I couldn't book with sncf, since it crashed just BEFORE I was about to be directed to the Verified by Visa portion of the session. Nor can I be sure that anti-fraud measures are why I can't seem to book Intercity type tickets online.

Anyway, anti-fraud measures in combination with built-in marketing bias, combined with railways seeking to encourage people to move to non-paper tickets of any kind, makes it very, very difficult to figure out why the systems are designed as they are. Too many variables. This is unfortunate, because it is hard to explain to others how to use, what one is not absolutely confident one has understood, oneself.

I mention this because as much as I've tried to be accurate in my experience and suggestions, people's mileage may still vary because despite all, I still may have gotten things wrong.
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Old Feb 23rd, 2014, 02:08 PM
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Is there a specific reason why you book Thalys tickets on Belgian Rail's website and not on thalys.com ?
On the latter I never had the issue of getting "the card" or picking it up in Belgium. You can simply print at home or get the "boarding pass" sent to your phone.

For rail travel within Belgium. you don't save a euro if you get your ticket in advance. You can simply get it at the station and hop on the next train.

The anti-fraud measures you experienced must be an issue of your US banks. I use my credit cards in "foreign countries" once a week. And you simply don't notify your bank here when you travel, and you don't have issues when making purchases on foreign websites, no matter if it's Belgium or Indonesia or the US.
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Old Feb 23rd, 2014, 03:55 PM
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Hello again Cowboy

No specific reason except I found b-europe to be user-friendly and let me do a digital homeprint of a Thalys ticket Antwerp-Schiphol (and being an ABS fare,it covers the IC portion Brugge Antwerp, no lining up at window, yay! As for picking up at the station, all I know is that some journeys weren't available for home print and only offered options like 'ticketless' or 'pick up at station." They do discuss options for mobile tickets on smartphones or tablets on b-europe but I haven't a clue as yet about this technology, how to use it.

Side rant: I've been through so many iterations of high tech over my lifetime I'm almost exhausted. Punched cards, then PCs, DOS, several programming languages, umpteen iterations of Windows, spreadsheets, word processing, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and now I'm taking seminars so that I can keep up with what today's five year olds already know about smartphones. Keep up? I am running like mad and the horizon is constantly receding. I swear, I seriously think I'll end by going off into the woods with a pencil, paper, my cash in a sock, and a note left behind that if anyone needs to reach me, they can do so by carrier pigeon.
Okay rant over. Where were we....




Ticketless (see below) seemed a headache, at least getting TheCard since I'm an infrequent travel on the system. Meanwhile here's what they say about TheCard on b-europe.com

*************************

"Ticketless

"Ticketless Thalys allows you to travel to any Thalys destination without a printed train ticket. You are no longer required to pick up your ticket from the station, nor to have the ticket sent to you or to print your ticket at home.

"While booking online, you just have to enter the number of your Thalys The Card at stage 3 of the booking process.

"For the control on board, you will just have to present your The Card chipcard or the confirmation e-mail of your ticketless booking with a 3D-bar code. "

************************

In short, TheCard seems to be an alternative to phone technology. By the way,

Anyway, the third and final option, in the event that homeprint wasn't available (for some journeys it is, for others it isn't) seemed to be pick up at the station. But depending on the site where you order the tickets, the station for pickup may not be suitable. My point was to warn people against the pick up in station option unless they are sure it will work for them (clearly, people had been making errors.)

Re the fraud thing, I was simply speculating based on the experiences of self and others, as to why the sncf site crashes for so many people, when many people, including myself, used to have no trouble with it. Like you I have sometimes done foreign transactions with no problems. But not on that site. You may be right, North American banks may use a different protocol than yours. But as for sncf, I am done with it. Waste of time.

Re rail travel within Belgium (e.g on IC trains) - yes, I know that there's a flat fare system. But it would be convenient not to have to line up at a ticket window to buy the IC ticket, especially if one is already in transit from somewhere else. Convenient or no, avoiding a ticket window for some journeys does not seem not an option unless, of course, that leg is covered by the ABS portion of a Thalys fare.
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Old Feb 23rd, 2014, 10:37 PM
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Understood. Lining up at the station is no fun, indeed.
Especially not in Belgium where I usually got stuck in line behind someone needing a super complicated annual pass or another time-consuming product.

To make things maybe a bit more confusing:
For intra-Belgium rail travel I always use SNCB's domestic website b-rail.com and print my tickets at home.
You can homeprint any ticket for any connections within Belgium (except Thalys between Brussels and Antwerpen, I guess - but there are THAT many trains that you don't need it) -- even for short legs like from Brussels Airport to downtown Brussels. Which is a good idea IMO, as queues at the airport's train station can be really long.

Between Belgium and the Netherlands, Thalys is just one highspeed train company. You can find all your options at yet another website: nshighspeed.nl
Last time I needed to go from Antwerpen to Rotterdam, I found the regular InterCity connections much cheaper than Thalys. This may be an option for those who don't mind to, e.g. take a slower direct train which needs an hour for what Thalys does in 35 minutes, but with the advantage of not being tied to a certain Thalys train and save half the fare. Going elsewhere like Amsterdam may be a different scenario and the Thalys may be the best option (esp. with ABS option).

nshighspeed.nl also offers homeprint, and so far I have found their website's layout and buying procedure quite easy to handle.
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Old Feb 23rd, 2014, 11:18 PM
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interesting, and no cash on London buses...
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Old Feb 24th, 2014, 03:02 AM
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cowboy1968

Thank you for all that info, most useful. It sounds like you based in Belgium (?) About the homeprint of connections within Belgium - I had forgotten temporarily that Belgian rail has two sites, one for international tickets, one for domestic. Thanks for the reminder.

Bilbo

That's it, I think public transit in general is headed for 'chip cards' aka 'smart cards' (or mobile/phone downloads.) London has the Oyster card, i.e. no cash on the buses, as you pointed out. But they at least still offer one day travel card versions for tourists to London. In the Netherlands, they have OV Chipkaart anonymous and personal versions; they also have a disposable one-to-four day chip card that is of limited use (only within Amsterdam area, and not valid on regional buses which is a real pain.) Belgium now has 'TheCard' - so far for rail networks, but one wonders if bus transit will soon follow.

I realize this is straying into Netherlands territory and this thread is about France-Belgium but: That OV Chipkaart business - great for Dutch residents, not really great for tourists: € 7.50, nonrefundable, for an 'anonymous' (non Dutch resident) card; minimum balances - nonrefundable in the case of anonymous cards - to be kept on the card, and the balance can be up to € 20 if one wants to board a train, even for just a short journey like Haarlem-Amsterdam. But on the other hand, big discounts on bus fares and no need to worry about correct change. Decisions, decisions.
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Old Feb 24th, 2014, 05:25 AM
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Sue

No, I'm not in Belgium, but I need to go there once or twice every month. So after a couple dozen times you probably just get used to the systems..

btw.. Belgian Rail has only a moderate "penalty" of €3 for buying the ticket on the train. Actually, you are supposed to look for the conductor immediately after you boarded without a ticket. But so far, I've only noticed people staying in their seats until the conductor comes by and only then ask for a ticket. Anyway, if you need to catch a train and travel only within BE and there are lots of people at the ticket window, it is an option to jump on the train and pay the extra €3 per ticket. After all, rail travel still is pretty cheap in Belgium.
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Old Feb 24th, 2014, 06:08 AM
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Yes, one does get used to systems - until they change them again LOL!

Thanks for the tips.
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Old May 26th, 2014, 05:43 AM
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Okay, so here's how it went in the end.

Arrived at CDG at 08:30 but it was after 10:00 am by the time our plane made it to the gate; deplaning, immigration, picking up bags (not too bad this time, only about 10 minutes extra) and walking over to the CDG TGV station (this part isn't fun, one must ford lineups of passengers as one crosses the various terminals.) On the basis of this experience, I wouldn't book a TGV train leaving earlier than 2 hours after one's plane is due to arrive, but your mileage may vary.

Found way to the CDG ticket office and avoided lining up at the part that sells only local Paris and surrounds tickets. One wants the 'Grandes Lignes' section. If memory serves, the local ticket office is indicated with green signs whereas the Grandes Lignes signs are in blue. These two ticket offices are side by side, so watch carefully if you don't want to spend time in the wrong line.

Note that prior to leaving home we changed our itinerary to Gent for the first night. Having checked out SNCF beforehand, I knew that the only routing SNCF would sell me to Gent was an absurd one via Bruges - and the CDG ticket office lady confirmed this. So, we bought IC tickets Lille-Courtrai (in Flemish, Kortrijk) leaving Lille an hour after our TGV was due to arrive.

So, at 11:57 we boarded our TGV to Lille, and after an hour there we boarded the IC train which would get us across the Belgian border. It turned out to be a Belgian rail train, but I suspect both companies share the routing rights.

My plan was to hop off in Courtrai/Kortrijk and buy the tickets for the last leg Kortrijk-Gent on the next train leg but luckily thanks to a helpful English-speaking Belgian on the Lille-Kortrijk run, I found I could buy the next ticket onward, i.e. Kortrijk-Gent, on the Lille-Kortrijk/Courtrai train, from the conductor. This I duly did - and he didn't even charge us the extra 3 euro apiece for the service (though I wouldn't count on this).

Arriving at Kortrijk we hopped off, and walked maybe ten paces to the train pulled up alongside. This was a simple commuter style train.

Once in Gent, we bought a shareable ten-ride public transit 'lijn' card from the desk in the Gent train station. We were able to use it in Gent and Bruges (and could have used in Antwerp but we walked there instead.) On leaving the Gent train station we lost forty minutes struggling to find the correct tram in the maze that the Gent train station area has become (it's under renovation.) Turns out had we turned left out of the station instead of right, we wouldn't have gone through that fiasco. But arrive in Gent, we duly did.

Gent-Bruges tickets were easy to buy using a chip credit card at a station machine.

Bruges to Antwerp was simple since we'd pre-bought, as described, ABS THalys tickets that allowed us to go on any Bruges-Antwerp train the day before our Antwerp-Schiphol train left.

In Schiphol we bought tickets on bus 300 straight from the driver. Just be sure to note whether the bus is going to Haarlem or Amsterdam.

Now that we've done it, it turned out to be an interesting part of our travel experience.
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Old May 26th, 2014, 08:11 AM
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>

Did you use a Chip and pin credit card? A chip and signature card? If the former and if you're an American, where did you get your chip and pin card?
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Old May 26th, 2014, 09:01 AM
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You can get a chip and pin card from Andrews credit Union (and a few other places now, too).
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