buckeyevet

This is an older thread, but I will add for future researchers that even on CapitaineTrain some credit cards will not work.

I was at work when tickets came available for our dates, so my father tried to book them. He had 2 credit cards refused despite calling the credit card companies to let them know of the upcoming transaction. When he called after the purchase wouldn't go through, the credit card companies said it was not an issue on their part--the payment was never even requested by CapitaineTrain.

I tried two credit cards I had in my wallet (a Chase Visa and a Barclaycard Mastercard) and same issue. Once I got home, I retrieved my never used Capital One card, and bingo--purchase went through with no issues.

Soooo, CapitaineTrain has it's issues too. But I would use it again in a heartbeat!

Ackislander

If you have problems with a ticket or other travel site, clear the cookies on your computer.

Cookies show them that you have just tried to book and that they have turned you down, for whatever reason. It will turn you down again.

If you clear the cookies -- which you ought to do frequently anyway -- it doesn't know you have been there before.

f1racegirl

Were you trying to buy iDTGV tickets on CaptainTrain? That's the only time I've experienced any issues there. I now have a card that's registered with Verified by Visa and it works every time.

buckeyevet

f1,

Yes, I just checked my confirmation email and they are iDTGV tickets in fact. And the first card I tried was a Verified by Visa one...but then so was the one that was accepted too.

I assume iDTGV tickets are different somehow?

Again, I would use CapitaineTrain in the future with no qualms. It was MUCH easier to navigate than Voyages-SNCF and MUCH cheaper than RailEurope.

buckeyevet (aka jennifero2)

f1racegirl

Booking an iDTGV ticket is the only time I've had a little snag with Captaintrain too, with the credit card issues, and most recently with being unable to choose seats. So I booked my most recent tickets directly on the iDTGV website, where I could choose seats.

When I have booked iDTGV on Captaintrain in the past, I think I went to the iDTGV site to change my seats. This was easy to do, and not a big issue since I was traveling alone - but for a trip I booked recently there are 2 of us and I wanted to choose seats as I booked.

buckeyevet

f1,

I also could not select my seats on Capitaintrain when I booked our tickets. However, I was able to follow the link to the iDTGV site via the confirmation email I recieved from them. It was really easy to go to the iDTGV site and choose seats then.

MTravelGuy

Hi, I'm from Moscow, Russia. I'd like to thank you all for providing a useful information about Captaintrain. It's indeed very user-friendly service. And unlike SNCF you can use non-European credit cards with it.

BTW, I got NO problems with my credit card with iDTGV site. But on iDTGV site you can book ONLY the tickets from Paris to other cities. If you need TGV to and from another cities, not Paris, you should use SNCF site. And that old site doesn't take non-European credit cards.

So it seems to me that they improved iDTGV site in this respect, but they haven't done the same with SNCF site. So was my expierence.

BTW, I traveled in Italy and Spain and got no problems with their railroads (I have 3D Secure, so it's not a problem). SNCF is the only web-site, where I had any problems.

Today I found your discussion here, and thanks to it, I went to Captaintravel. And it worked well.