Andre

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

ggnga

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.

davida

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?

Andre

davida,

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

ggnga

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.

Andre

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

ggnga

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.

ira

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

How very French.

ggnga

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.

Andre

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

ira

Glad it workedout, gg.

ggnga

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.

alfiesquestion

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?

Christina

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.

ira

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.

ggnga

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.