Palenque

Thanks for your info on DB. Does that work for French and Italian trains also? The best I have been able to get from DB for F and I is schedules. Maybe I am missing a link?>

If you mean finding fares and booking on the DB's bahn.de site no - only schedules unless IME the train goes thru a part of Germany.

www.voyages-sncf.com is the French Railways site and it has similar online discount fares (PREM fares like the Spar fares on DB - it is a bit trickier to use - i am parroting what many others have said - put England in as your home country helped or they send you over to RailEurope in the U.S., a subsidiary of the French Railways but does not offer as many PREM fares as on the www.voyages-sncf.com site.

trenitalia.com is similar but currently American Credit Card just won't work so it is impossible to book on that site with an American card.

Palenque

The English-speakers seem to mispronounce both -burg and -berg in the same way, no wonder it gets confusing for them...

well let me try to pronounce them as i think they are and altamiro please correct me

burg - Like in Burg Eltz - burr-gg - hard g sound

berg Like in Heidelberg = bare-gg hard g sound

teacher - please grade. thanks

Cavangal

I order rail tickets on Sncf. voyages and always put in Ireland as country of residence. I receive the tickets by mail to my US address in about 3 days. Never had a problem with charging on credit card.

I now have my Bahn tickets printed so less to worry about. Thanks

Palenque

I thought tickets on www.voyages-sncf.com were paperless e-tickets?

Curious -is there a charge to have tickets mailed to the States by SNCF Voyages?

thanks

TimS

The only tickets booked at voyages-sncf.com that you can print yourself are Prem's discount fare tickets. For all other fares you must either pick up your tickets at a station (or boutique) or have them mailed to you.

However, I hope Cavangal comes back and answers this question. If I enter a country of residence on the SNCF site and choose to have tickets mailed to me, the field for the country to which the tickets will be mailed is automatically filled in and cannot be changed. How then would I be able to get tickets mailed to the United States?

Cavangal

I have been receiving Sncf/ TGV tickets in the mail for 10 years and there is no charge for the postage. They show my full US address in the window and about 2 lines underneath, IRELAND appears so that is not a problem. My zip code and US address gets them to me safely. Many folks have a residence in the US and have address overseas too. I never use EURO RAIL as they cost more and do not give senior discounts.

In fact, only yesterday I received am email from TGV notifying me of a delay on their route next week from Toulouse. I can go to the customer service at the station to get reticketed for the next train.

TimS

Thanks, Cavangal.

I have to take back what I said in my previous post about Prem's being the only tickets you can print yourself. SNCF has just inaugurated a new e-ticket option which also applies to other fares.

Palenque

Yes Cavangal - thanks for the response.

Palenque

so weird - SNCF blocking U.S. addresses from their site and shifting them over to their subsidiary RailEurope.com (USA) and then actually sending the tickets to the U.S.

Sometimes one wonders if one hand of SNCF knows what the other hand is trying to do

thankfully they do not! Or it would seem.