Need some help please. I'm trying to buy a train ticket from Paris to Amsterdam on July 6th, 2006, and have some questions.

1. SNCF/Thalys price it out at 198 Euro for 2 people - is this a good price? does the price go up/down at any point? How much did you pay? Is there another train provider

2. I see conflicting info on how to receive tickets. Thalys system (which seems to use the SNCF system) says they can mail it to me (Toronto, Canada) within 7 days. SNCF doesn't have canada in their mailing list, so I don't know if that's true.

3. In relation to 2, ideally I'd like to print the tickets - how do I order to ensure I can print them?

Thanks for any help,
Jeff

Loooong thread about this subject with instructions:
MorganB's guide to SNCF -
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34752919

For anyone else looking for help on this - I couldn't see a lot of answers about price in MorganB's guide (although his guide is fantastic).

If you are going one way only, just like London to Paris on eurostar, it's much cheaper to buy a return ticket from Paris to Amsterdam and throw away the return ticket. It's weird why european rail companies price like this, but one way on thalys was $190E for 2, and return was $130E. Weird.

Jeff

It's very possible that your 'return' ticket was discounted, and therefore has restrictions on exchanges/refunds, whereas the full-fare one-way ticket is fully refundable/exchangeable. That is how a r/t ticket can cost less than a one-way ticket.
The one-way ticket is never discounted, to my knowledge.

One-way tickets are always the most expensive ones.
Make a simulation again for a return ticket and you will see that you can get tickets as low as 65 euro pp <b>return</b> (Smilys which are non refundable and unchangeable).
When you book on www.thalys.com you have the possibility to collect your tickets in Paris (in the 'Ticket issued or sent to:' box, browse to France).