Pick up SNCF tickets in France
 

I'm going from Paris to Aix by train, and on the website it asks where you'd like to pick up your tickets. I've heard that I should say "france".
Where does one pick up the tickets once in France?
thanks.

You can pick them up at any train station I believe. We picked ours up at the sncf booth at the CDG airport.

You can also pick them up at SNCF boutiques. Be sure to have your printed confirmation and the same credit card you used online.

They'll ask you your name, a code included in your confirmation, and the same credit card you used to pay.

HI--another option--at least the one we used--was "print them yourself". Of course this requires a home printer. For us there were many advantages to this--no standing in any lines--you just board the train that you have reserved. Also you can print several copies of the tkts and keep them in different spots in your luggage, so no concern about losing them. They are completely safe b/c they have your name printed on them so no one else can use them. On the train, you just present your "homemade" ticket along w/your passport when the conductor comes to check tkts.

I recently had trouble picking up my tickets at a SNCF kisoque even though I had the credit card I had used on-line. Fortunately I was at the CDG station and there was an actual SNCF office (with humans) there and they had no trouble giving me my ticket when I presented the confirmation number. So just be aware that sometimes the kisoques don't work. There are plenty of actual offices though.

We also got ours at the rail station in Paris when we were heading to Avignon. No hassels at all.

Alison

Print them out yourself on your home computer. Easy and low stress. Just present the printout to the ticket agent (with ID).

Hello, I was thinking of posting a thread regarding this but have been putting it off. I bought tickets several times in the past from SNCF and picked up in France with no problem. However this time the website was different with a mail to your address free of charge marked with no way to click it off. I tried english and french site. I could not go on with reservation without an address filled in.

I filled in my USA address planning to pick up tickets at station with code from my email since tickets would not be mailed. Decided to take my chances after checking RailEurope site with double prices, of course.

I ordered 2 separate tickets since departing and arriving back at different stations. Paid for both at once. Surprise, one ticket did come to me by mail but no sign of the other and it has been 10 days. The tickets had different codes on my email. I am still hoping to pick the one up at the station but it could be difficult to explain especially with my pitiful French.

I do not suppose this has happened to anyone else on this board. If so, how did you resolve it. Thanks for any advice. Please, no why did you do such a dumb thing replies. I am already saying that! Sorry this is so long.

ttt,

ggnga:

If you have enough time before your departure, try e-mailing SNCF and request that your ticket be mailed - their e-mail address is on the website. I did this, received a return e-mail (a few days later) explaining that they don't mail tickets to the U.S., and then received the tickets in the mail about a week later. Go figure.

I have been trying the last several days to buy PREM tickets at the SNCF website. Like someone else on this thread, I could not turn off the 'mail it' button and the website would not give me either the print tickets or the pick up tickets option that other folks have mentioned. I thought maybe they had updated and what we want is no longer possible. But then I saw someone post yesterday saying they succeeded. Help!

I've not ordered with SNCF online, but could it be that the option is "mail" -unless- you selected France as your 'residence'; perhaps only then it allows you option to pick up at station.

I got around the not mailing SNCF tickets to Canada and USA problem by telling them that I lived at a hotel in London. The tickets were waiting for us when we arrived. I had phoned the hotel to make sure they would be OK with this and to watch for them. No problem picking up Eurostar tickets from the machine at Waterloo International.

Like Isabel we had trouble obtaining tickets (Thalys) at Gare du Nord using the kiosk. We had to see a live human to resolve the issue. He were told it is because our credit cards lack a microchip. It was a good thing we got to the train station early as this took about 30 minutes where it should have taken two. The same no chip issue prevented us from using our credit card to buy Paris Metro, Louvre and Netherlands train tickets from machines. No other troubles with credit cards.

travelnut..I did pick France as my residence when I booked.

Steveboy..I had read your post before about this and did receive 1 ticket by mail. Why not the other? My worry is that the 2nd ticket is lost in the mail and they will refuse to issue it again at the station in Paris. The address sent to me has my address with USA on the same line with city, state and zip code and underneath that line France. So you see, it could be lost.

I am going to email them today that I will pick up the 2nd ticket at the station and see what response I get. I will let you all know. The website is
different than it used to be. If anyone has figured how to get past "mail to" to print or pick up let us all know.

Thanks for your replies.

We picked up our tickets at CDG when we arrived. It was very easy. There was no line, we just happened to be walking by and spotted them.

I think people are missing the point of my post. I know you can pick up tickets at a station as I have done so in the past with no problems. However in the past the website did not require you to put in an address for mailing. Now there is NOT a way to choose pick up at the station as Davida also mentions.

Now you run the risk of the tickets actually being mailed to a USA address with France also listed on the envelope as mine was. And to further complicate things, one of my tickets came by mail and the other one did not. If I am missing something on the website, let me know for future reference. I guess this is a way to safeguard residents of USA from using the site since we are supposed to buy from RailEurope.

Again, I am trying to figure out if I missed someting on website.

Hi gg,

I just did a simulation on Paris/Aix on the TGV.

Whether I chose the PREM or regular fare, it defaulted to "Print your ticket yourself".

Otherwise, you can have the tickets delivered to your hotel.

I just went to the site as I am looking for tickets for this July, anyway, so it was good practice. I had no trouble and it did NOT insist on a mailing address or not let you click anything but mail delivery. There were several choices for purchase/delivery, and you could click on whichever one you wanted (mail/pickup/buy later and pickup).

I clicked on pickup with no problem. You don't have to fill in an address when you are picking them up. The only mandatory fields marked in that online form are your name and email address. You do have to read the form and all website instructions carefully, and note which fields are mandatory.

I think you shouldn't go through with a purchase by selecting options you don't want if you are having problem with a web site, if that's what happened. Sometimes web sites have technical problems, "freeze" some functions, etc., and you just have to go back at a later time -- not only may the site be fixed if it wasn't, but it could be something with your computer that was freezing it or retaining wrong info or something, and that will "erase" the info from forms. For example, you can get goofy results on some airline booking websites by trying to change info using the back button when it thinks you want all of the flights you've put in the boxes, not just the last one.

I assume you read the conditions on SNCF before purchasing -- I think they say they aren't responsible for mail delivery problems, but I'm not sure as I haven't read them in a while. I don't think your problems are because SNCF knows you are a US resident, as I am also.

Well, I have now several times tried Paris-Luxembourg PREM tickets on the voyages-sncf website and am still given no option but the 'mail them' option, not pick up and not print out. Maybe it has something to do with destinations? The 'mail it' button can't be turned off; no other options are listed; and if I try to get straight to a 'imprimer' option, I am asked for a conf. number, which of course you can't get without completing the earlier pages. CAN ANYONE REPLICATE A June Paris/Lux request and come up with delivery options other than 'courrier'????

Hi Davida,

Indeed! It would appear that international PREMs fares cannot be printed online at all at this time!

That's quite a bummer - hopefully this is some sort of glitch, which will be fixed soon...

Hope this helps,
Andre

Ira...Well, mystery, mystery. I looked on the site today and now I DID get the other options not just mail it. I just tried the site a few minutes ago.

Davida..I am glad to know I did not imagine things when I booked. Maybe just keep trying.

I think we have figured this out: Just now when I substituted Marseilles for Luxembourg, the 'imprimer' option appeared joining the 'courrier' option. So either permanently or temporarily Andre is right, intrntl prems can't be printed. ...I'll keep trying. Other theories/tricks anyone?

davida,

Andre is permanently, not temporarily right about this and many other things ;-)

Hello, I received my email from SNCF about picking up the missing ticket from the station. They said it is not possible to change the mode of receiving the ticket. Then the next sentence:
Apres verification, votre billet est bien regle il est en cours d'evoi a domicille. Does this say that upon verification my ticket is in good standing and is in process of being sent to my house. I know that is not the literal translation but is that basically the gist?

Your assist is greatly appreciated.

gganga,

Your translation is correct. Your ticket has been paid for and is in the mail. Let's hope for the best!

At worst, the tickets will be returned to the SNCF and in that case I imagine they would contact you.

Hope this helps,
Andre

A short update on missing TGV ticket. Still the 2nd ticket has not come by mail. I leave in 6 days. I emailed SNCF again yesterday and got this reply. They explained nicely that I really could not have a ticket mailed to me, should contact RailEurope for that....However, the ticket is IN the mail. If I do not receive it in time, I should take my email confirmation and can purchase the ticket again at the station for the same price. I can then apply for a refund of the first ticket. They supplied me with the refund address. I think that is very fair. I still have a few days to go. I will let you know the final outcome.

>They explained nicely that I really could not have a ticket mailed to me,....However, the ticket is IN the mail.<

How very French. :)

I have returned from a very good trip to Provence/Paris. This is the final segment of "Lost in the Mail". I went to the SNCF office in CDG on arrival. I purchased another ticket at the same price and was then given credit for the one I never received. The agent said the credit would appear on my account within 5 to 6 days. SNCF agent was very nice and helpful. I was very pleased. Grabbed my ticket and took another nap on the train.

Glad to hear it all worked out, ggnga!

P.S.
It is still not possible to print out PREM'S tickets for INTERNATIONAL routes, except Geneva, which is considered domestic by the SNCF. So this does not appear to be a glitch but rather a deliberate policy (go figure). You can however print out the cheap "Smilys" fares on the Thalys trains to/from Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany - again, select ticket pickup in France to use this option (and include a fictional return date if you are only travelling one way), regardless of where you live or in what country your train journey originates.

To get PREM's fares on those routes where the tix cannot be printed out, you should call the SNCF in France at:
011 33 8 92 35 35 39
if you live in North America. The tickets will then be mailed to you (at least this is what several posters on this board claim to have been able to do).

If you live anywhere else, they can be mailed to you free of charge by the SNCF, provided you select your country of residence in the "ticket pickup" dropdown list.

Hope this helps,
Andre

Glad it workedout, gg.

I said that was the last segment of "Lost in the Mail". However, guess what came on Saturday. I did not look at the mail until this AM. The long lost train ticket. It was postmarked April 24 and showed no sign that it had been returned anywhere. I think that is about the same time that the other ticket was mailed.

I will again commend the SNCF at CDG for being so easy to deal with. I had a problem with a train ticket in the UK and went round and round with much correspondence before getting it solved.

After reading all the responses to problems with online ordering, it sounds to me there is a lesson here: Do not order train tickets online. If at all possible wait until you are there and reserve them a couple of days before you leave. Thats what we are going to do. Make sense?

It makes sense if it isn't a train during a peak period or popular run that may get booked. Also, there are some advanced purchase discounts, but other than that it doesn't matter. I wouldn't ever order them online for a short, local run as they don't cost much anyway, and often aren't discounted even in advance.

There aren't really problems except some people have trouble reading the instructions and expect a foreign country's national rail service to mail them tickets thousands of miles away, for free. Amtrak in the US doesn't mail tickets abroad, either. If someone wants a service like that, they should go through an agent.

I think people expect too much for free -- they book online because they want a real cheap reduced price and then expect them to mail them abroad. Even by mail, I think the recent post expecting them to be mailed and received within only a couple weeks by regular mail was unrealistic, even if they would mail abroad. Sometimes I get a regular postcard or mail from France within a week or 10 days, and sometimes it can take 2-3 weeks. Also, businesses have to add on time for the admnistrative work.

Hi alfie,

The SNCF website is very easy to navigate. Just read the directions.

You can get an e-ticket, usually at a greatly reduced price, that you can trade in for a real ticket as late as 15 min before the train leaves.

For long trips on high-speed trains, I would book online.

Let me add that I booked numerous times online without problems and easily picked the tickets up on arrival. I needed to book this ticket before arrival because I was flying into CDG and going straight onward to Avignon on a Holiday. I did not EXPECT the tickets to be mailed to me thousands of miles "for free". I DID NOT want them mailed to me. There was a computer glich that day with "mail to" as the only option and I thought the site had been changed. The problem was my fault and they assisted me VERY NICELY.

I did not expect too much for free. I said early on that if I could not resolve it, I would simply buy another ticket. Another 80 euros would not matter that much. I really hope this will not deter others from booking online. There are some savings to be found and some times such as Holidays when you need to book before arrival.