If I purchase and use the card at noon on Wednesday is it good for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday or is it good from noon Wednesday until noon Saturday (72 hours)?

Thanks

72 hours

tweetex may be right, but I'm not sure how. As far as I remember you must write the date for your first day's use, there is no place to punch for a time. If you wrote 10 July for example at noon, I can't believe that you could still be using in on 13th July -- four days later. How could anyone know what time you started using it?

Just looked at the pass from my Paris trip a few weeks ago as it stares at me from atop the scrap book pile. There is no place to write a time, and the little info booklet that came with the pass has no specifics, but I would say that it's good for three consecutive days, not 72 hours. It can't hurt to ask once you get there.

When all else fails go to the source. I just looked up the number and called the 800 number of Eurail tickets who sells it. (Remember that old fashioned thing called a telephone?) Nope. The Paris visite card is for three consecutive days -- not for 72 hours. If you start using it at 2 minutes before midnight, you only get 2 days plus 2 minutes out of it.

Instead of the Paris Viste Pass, get a carnet of 10 tickets each. It costs less than the pass and if you don't use all the tickets, you can take them back with you the next time you visit Paris. (It's a great excuse to return!=D>

At least you wouldn't have to worry about whether or not the pass was out of date.

Have a great time.

I don't think there is any kind of metro/RER pass that is good for a certain number of hours, rather than days. Actually, I've never heard of one in any city that was based on hours.

However, I don't think it is impossible as the turnstile machine could encode the time on it, as it does the date when you first use it (and maybe it does record the time for all I know). It seems technically quite feasible.

I think if it were good for 72 hours it would say that rather than 3 consecutive days. It isn't the greatest bargain, that's for sure, but it's not that bad and is convenient. I wouldn't ever buy one unless I planned on using the museum shop discount.

Christina, the one that works like that is in Venice. You can buy a three day vaporetto pass and it's good from whatever time you punch it in to validate it until that same time three days later. It's really great. If you arrive at noon, it's good until you leave at noon three full days later (getting essentially four days use out of it). But the Paris one doesn't work that way.

You'll find information here:

http://www.ratp.fr/ParisVisite/Eng/index.htm

Here's another recommendation for purchasing a carnet.

Hi trav,

I also recommend the 10 ticket carnet (10E) unless you are using the discount coupons on the Paris Visite card.