A quick SNCF question.....
 

I'm online trying to purchase my SNCF tickets from Interlaken, Switzerland to Paris. As suggested in other posts, I put Antarctic for my country to avoid being transferred to the Rail Europe website. The system is trying to mail my tickets to Antarctic! It didn't give me the option to have email delivery. Instead it says "Delivery free by post".

What do I do? I just want to print the tickets off on my home computer.

Thanks,

Marla

That's because you are not leaving from France. You should use the Swiss railways site to buy tickets from Switzerland.

I didn't realize that Kerouac! I'm on the www.sbb.ch site now and it doesn't offer the same times/routes as the sncf site. In fact, I was looking at only one connection on the sncf site, but the sbb.ch site wants 2-3 connections. Yuck!

Hi Oz,

Can you use Switzerland as your country and have the tickets sent to your hotel?

((I))

This is for travel in June. I was trying to book just inside the 90 day window to get the best price. So I don't think hotel delivery would be an option.

What day/time do you want to travel?

June 19th, a Wednesday as early as possible. The sncf site shows routes from 6-6:30 am departing Interlaken West to Paris. But the earliest flight on sbb.ch is around 10:00. They don't even show anything from 6-8:30 for departing from Interlaken.

Perhaps the TGV Lyria site would work?

Well, www.voyages-sncf.com shows a 6:32 train from Interlaken, with a correspondence in Bale, arriving Paris 11:37, for E91.20. Can you read enough French to use that site? Most of it is pretty intuitive...Départ (Interlaken toutes gares), arrivée (Paris, toutes gares), date (19 juin), your age, number of passengers...then pick your train by filling in the box next to the 6:32 one, proceed to the checkout, give them your cc number and choose Imprimer (print).

Or try this:

www.capitainetrain.com

I haven't used it, but it's apparently working for some people having trouble with the SNCF sites.

StCirg, that's the route I was trying to book. And I can navigate the site in French enough to book the tickets. But the site wanted to deliver the tickets to my post address in Antarctica. How do I get around that?

Also, I tried the www.capitainetrain.com site. The tickets are not available through that website.

Were you using www.voyages-sncf.com specifically? Not www.tgv-europe.com? Because on www.voyages-sncf.com there is no Antarctic option. You keep the default country as France, and then toward the end you have the Imprimer option, or the option to have them mailed, or the option to pick them up at a station or SNCF boutique. Pick Imprimer.

Here's what the voyages-sncf site says about ticket delivery/pickup. (I still don't see a "We will email and you can print your tickets at home" option.)

Choisissez comment retirer votre billet

Continuez votre réservation et payez en ligne

Borne Libre Service (Gares de France et Luxembourg uniquement) : La carte bancaire utilisée pour le paiement doit être en cours de validité au moment du retrait, le code secret vous sera demandé. * Retrouvez la Borne Libre Service la plus proche
En savoir

Envoi gratuit par courrier : Recevez votre billet chez vous. Et payez cet achat avec le système 3DSecure. Tout savoir sur 3DSecure.
En savoir

Gare ou boutique : La carte bancaire utilisée pour le paiement
doit être en cours de validité au moment du retrait, le code secret vous sera demandé.

ATTENTION : En choisissant ce mode de retrait, vous ne pouvez pas utiliser de cartes virtuelles. Pour un retrait de billet hors de France, des frais supplémentaires seront facturés sur place, consultez les informations utiles. *
Retrouvez la gare ou boutique la plus proche


My french is horrible and using google translate isn't helping me any!

Thanks, in advance, for any help you can give me!

Then you don't have the option to print it out, probably because it's not a PREM ticket. Choose the gare (train station) ou boutique (SNCF store/boutique) option, and make sure you go to Switzerland with the confirmation email that you will receive as well as the cc or debit card you use to buy them. Plan to either go by a station or store ahead of time or get to the station really early to retrieve the tickets (since you are departing from Interlaken, I have NO idea what that might entail...how early the train station may be open, or how the Swiss rail system coordinates with the French one).

On second (third, fourth, fifth...) thought, I'd just call SNCF. They have English operators at 011-33-8-92-35-35-39.

THANK YOU StCirq for taking the time to help me. I dug around over at Rail Europe and found a suitable option for only $80 more than the voyages-sncf.com routes. At this point, I'm willing to spend the extra $80 to know and understand exactly what I'm getting into!

I'm off to book our tickets......