Poor Advice on French TGV Ticketing?
 

Proof that you often get better more up to date advice from Fodor's than from the Travel Section of your local fish wrap:

(AP Story)
talks about the new TGV-Est line and doing day trips on it to Reims and Colmar

"From Paris' Gare de l'Est station, there are 8 round-trip high-speed trains to Reims daily and three to Colmar; return fare to Reims currently runs $63, to Colmar about $183. Buy tickets in person at one of the SNCF railway company's Paris boutiques, not (NOT) online. You need a European credit card in order to pick up tickets purchased on the Web site."

Well from posts of TimS and Ira and others i think you'd pay much more potentially by taking their advice and wait until you get there

and is it true that you cannot pick up online tickets unless you have a European credit card - may be talking about the machines but at ticket windows?

I'm not positive the AP stuff is poor advice but it seems to be

What am i missing?

Hi PQ,

Choosing a date at random, Nov 22, I found RT PREMS tickets in ** 1cl ** for Paris/Colmar for 97E.

Add 6E for insurance in case you can't go.

No option to print the tickets because it requires a change of trains.

AFAIK, one can still use US credit cards at the manned ticket booths.

If you buy Paris/Strasbourg, and Strasbourg/Colmar RT tickets online separately, you can print the PREMS tickets to/from Strasbourg, pick up the S/C RT tickets at any train station or SNCF Boutique AND save 13E - still 1cl.

((I))

I am not the expert on these tickets but I think PREMS you can print off the intetnet ahead of time - and that saves you beaucoup $$$$ or EEEE's and you can pick up tickets with the cards you paid for them - either US or EU. But my actual point is, the older I get the more I realize many times what you read is not accurate or complete, leading to inaccurate conclusions. Yes, for European travel, thank heavens for Fodors travel boards!

Ira

Is the PREM fare any different if you buy 1 ticket from Paris to Colmar (1 train change - can't print ticket on-line), versus 2 tickets - 1 to the point where the train change occurs, and another to Colmar (and I assume you CAN print the tickets on-line).

Malarky about not purchasing them on-line and picking them up at a station - I've done that as well as printing tickets on line. I'm sure they were referring to getting the tickets at a machine - not from a station agent or SNCF boutique.

Stu Dudley

PalenQ, I used your advice of BETS for our train tickets this summer. We traveled quite a bit leaving from Amsterdam through Belgium to Nancy and then later on the TGV from Nancy to Paris. I'm seeing on my ticket that the Nancy-Paris portion was 58 USD. I'm not sure if that is a good price, but the BETS rep and I spent a good hour on the phone planning our trip. He made some very good suggestions on routing making for a perfect ride.

Kansan - at $58 i don't see how it could have been too out of line but in any case the hour of advice would have been worth it to many folks who are not experts traveling French trains for years. So it sounds like a good deal. One reason i do recommend BETS is because you talk to someone who knows what they are doing and will spend yes up to an hour on the phone - unparalleled service IME as usually can't even contact anyone by phone.