French Rail Pass?
 

Hello. I'm planning a last minute, three week trip to France in May/June. I used frequent flyer miles, and could only find plane tickets in and out of Paris.

We missed the window for buying train tickets at a good price. I was researching, and I came upon the option of a French Rail Pass. Our trip plans aren't quite solid yet, but there will probably be four days when we'll be taking long train rides, including Paris to Annecy, Annecy to Avignon, Avignon to Nice, and Nice to Paris.

A four day pass for two is $432, and we're going to be paying at least $200 just for CDG to Annecy, so on the surface, it seems like the pass might t be a better bet. I need to do more research, but I was wondering why I never see this option mentioned here. In other words, is there some drawback I'm not seeing? Thanks!

Generally speaking, rail passes in France are not a great idea, but they can be if you have missed the time to buy the cheapest tickets. With a rail pass, you will still have to pay a reservation fee for TGV trains such as the one that you will take from CDG to Annecy and the number of seats reserved for pass holderson such trains are limited. What could happen is that despite having the pass, there could be no more seats available to pass holders even though the train is not full and then to obtain a seat on a specific train, you will have to pay the full fare. Alternatively, you could wait and take a train with available pass holder seats. Take a look at http://www.seat61.com/Railpass-and-E...ide.htm#Should you buy a railpass or pay-as-you-go

There are a limited number of seats on trains for pass holders and sometimes you'll also pay a steep reservation fee. You really need to price the cost of individual tickets for your journeys vs. the cost of a rail pass and any reservation fees you'll pay.

It is not too late to get cheap tickets for late May/June and I have no idea what website you are looking at to get your train schedules and prices but you should be using www.capitainetrain.com. Avoid the RailEurope website as it often doesn't show all available trains and has higher prices. Picking a random date at the end of May (May 28th) I see one way fares from Paris to Annecy as low as 43€ on a direct TGV. Prices can vary depending on the time of day but you really need to figure out the cost of individual tickets first before you buy a rail pass and you need to carefully study the terms and conditions of any rail pass you are considering, especially in regards to reservation fees.

Also, are you pricing out your tickets on sncf.com/en or capitainetrain.com? If you are using Rail Europe, try looking at the other two sites and vice versa.

Thanks so much to all of you. I didn't know that seats were limited with the pass. I knew there must be a catch somewhere!

I was using http://www.sncf.com/fr, and I know I didn't get redirected to rail Europe because I was watching for that. We would be traveling on a Saturday to Annecy, and the fares seem to be worse that day.

I've never heard of captaintrain.com, so I'll see if that shows me anything different. I'll also check out the pass guide!

Sorry for the typo on captainetrain.com.

If you can use the English or French version of SNCF without being redirected to RailEurope then you don't need to use capitainetrain as both sites will have the exact same info and prices. Some have reported, however, that they have issues with SNCF accepting foreign credit cards and don't have a similar problem with capitainetrain.

You haven't mentioned a specific date for your Annecy journey but if you can be flexible with the dates you travel then you might choose to do that journey on a day when fares are cheaper. For instance, on Saturday May 23rd the fares from Paris to Annecy are mostly 80€ to 105€ but there are fares as low as 25€ on Sunday the 24th.

I'd be less worried about limited seats for pass holders and more worried about any reservation fee I'd have to pay with a rail pass.