I am trying to book Thalys transportation from Paris to Amsterdam for two people. All was going fine until I got to the passenger section. They asked for my name, but they did not ask for the 2nd passenger's name. Then they switched over to payment. Is this the norm and when I purchase they will ask for the second passenger? Or did I do something wrong?

Thanks for your help!

Generally on most European train tickets you need only one person's name and the ticket should then say two passengers with two reserved seat numbers

not sure about Thalys but that's a general thing IME

keep topping as someone will be more definitive about Thalys per se.

Thank you so much. I thought I was going crazy or just missed something.

I appreciate it!

I can't really remember the exact details, but I know when I print out our Thalys tickets (they were discounted SMOOVE fares), one ticket had my name and the other had my DH's name on. So, somewhere along the purchasing process, I had to enter both our names.

I bought it via www.voyages-sncf.com, and this was discounted tickets. I don't know if things are different for full fare tickets.

well yk's info leads me to believe yes if discounted tickets they may need a specific name so as to not be given to someone else, etc. so i would check further and if discounted fares heed yk's experience

Thanks everyone. I am going to give it a shot.

Hi dw,

For regular tickets, you get one confirmation showing 2 seats for 2 people. These are good anytime.

For discount tickets, each passenger gets a separate ticket, because they are good one time, on one train only.

For discounted tickets, after you give the payment information, and you click to 'print your tickets', THEN you can load both passenger names and birthdates.

For the regular fare tickets, what Ira said.

hi,
what should I expect to pay for 2nd class, roundtrip Amsterdam-Paris at the end of Sept.?

jetsetj - the sooner you buy your ticket, the cheaper it is. You can buy them as early as 3 months in advance.

If you're departing from Amsterdam, you can buy your ticket via NS HiSpeed (Netherlands Railway website). A quick check for last week of Sept shows cheapest ticket to be €25 (one-way). Prices then go up to €36, €55, €66, €83, €94 (all one-way), depending on the time of train. The fully flexible full-price ticket is €110 one way.

yk,
thanks for the info, we will purchase within the next few weeks to get cheapest.
Also, I got Fodors Amsterdam/Netherlands book from the library yesterday, and surprise,there is your quote.
You're a star !!

Im having trouble with the NS hispeed site. It wont stay on english. after i put it stations and dates, the next page isnt in english. am i missing something?

Thanks

jetsetj, on the next page with the train schedules, if you look at the top R corner of the page, you'll see a little drop-down box where you can switch it back to English.

P.S. since you mentioned "end of Sept", I <u>would not wait</u> on buying tickets if you want to buy at the cheapest rate. The cheapest fares (ie, the 25 euros one) are usually gone the day it comes on sale - 3 months in advance. If you're happy with paying 60-80 euros for your ticket (each way), then sure you can wait a few weeks. But to score the most discounted tickets, you need to work fast.

Just so you know, the discounted tickets are valid for that specific train only. If you want full flexibility, then you need to buy the full fare ticket, which you can wait until last minute to do so.

I purchased my Thalys Paris to Amsterdam 90 days from the travel date and received the cheaper Smoove fares. They had each of our names on separate tickets.

thanks for the info, we will book asap...

If you want fully flexible fares then Rail Europe is currently offering a 50% off sale - good for purchases thru the end of Aug but not sure how long after you can use them.