I've been trying several times a day for a full week to book 4 tickets from Avignon to CDG on the TVG at the SNCF site for March 29. Every time I plug in the information I get this message: <<Suite à une erreur technique, nous vous invitons à réessayer ultérieurement.>>

Could the site really be malfunctioning for a whole week? Has anyone else had problems with the site recently?

What's really odd is that it allowed me to make reservations from Paris to Avignon without a hitch.

I've been using it this week and have gotten that error several times, also. At first I thought the site wasn't functioning as I had the correct locations and times filled in -- finally, I realized I had put in a date for June, too far in the future, and when I changed the date to a closer one, everything worked fine (I was mainly trying to get schedules and an idea of price, not to really reserve).

I believe your date is more than 60 days in the future, that's probably why.

Christina is correct. You are outside the 60 day window. I went through the same situation earlier in the month when I booked tickets for that same route for early March.

Curiously when I tried booking for travel on March 11, I got the same error message while trying it on March 10 at 4:45PM. When I tried at 5:00PM which was now midnight the 11th Paris time it when through. Plus I got the one way fare for only 20E.

JoeG

I was testing last week with my fare from Metz to Paris in March. I thought it was a true 60 day advance purchase. It wasn't. It's a "calendar" 60 days like the 19th of Jan. to the 19th of March.

On Jan.18th in the morning in the US, I could not buy a ticket for March 19th which is 60 days due to February being short.

At 6:15pm on the 18th I could buy my ticket because that was 12:15am on January 19 in France.

Out of curiosity I tried to check the Prems availability at 8:00 & 9:00pm on the 18th. I received the system error again. The next morning in the US I could book the Prems fare which was late in the day on the 19th in Paris.

I'm assuming they shut down in the wee hours for maintenance. I don't know if this happens every night or not.

Thanks, all. For some reason I thought the 60-day thing was for PREM fares only, which is not what I'm purposely trying to buy at this point. I could swear I've bought "regular" tickets more than 60 days in advance, but maybe not. I guess I'll wait until 60 days out and give it another try.

There are new tickets you can purchase from Paris to Avignon under the iDTGR name. They can be purchased four months in advance and are very reasonable, first class one-way is 39 Euros. I have tried to purchase and print them out but ran into several problems: The date I entered was May 15, 2005, but it came back with Saturday, May 15th which is wrong, the 15th is a Sunday. The second problem is, I was told the tickets were for adults 26-59, we are three seniors 62-64, but there is no place to enter this. I have called the English speaking operator at TVG, but they did not even know about the new iDTGR service and had no answers. I have e-mailed my questions and while I do get an e-mail answer it is not to my specific questions. I am told to buy a senior discount card which does not make sense since this is the only trip I am taking within a year. One of the e-mail answers was "If the website doesn't offer this price, there is no place for this" which I do not understand at all. Is there a travel guru out there or someone who has purchased the same kind of tickets who can help me. I am at a loss! I could always wait until 60 days before the trip and try to get the prem tickets. But will I run into the problems some posters had with the "technical error" message? Thank you for your help!
Edda in Indianapolis

there response makes sense to me, although perhaps a bit un-idiomatic. They mean if a certain discount or fare is not offered on the web site when you check routes and times, then it is not available. You can't get discounts on every train and for some routes you can only get them on nonpeak times or runs. They probably told you to buy a senior discount card because you asked how to get one or something.

You can't get senior discounts on every train run, either, and that may be the problem with why there is no place to enter ages for the very low fare you want. You will be allowed to travel at that fare, of course. I don't think you can get any senior discounts on iDTV fares, they are already very discounted. This seems confirmed by the fact that even if you put on the web site that you have one of those carte senior passes and put age over 60, it still does not reduce the fare below 39 euro.

The only thing that seems troublesome in your encounter, Edda, is that it lists May 15th as Saturday. It could be meaningless and their program has the wrong day link to the date, but I would be a little concerned on that point. It does list it correctly as Sunday on the front section where you first fill in the boxes with your points and dates, it's only when coming back with the fares that it errors.

Edda,

I'm sure that you could all easily pass for 59 or younger!

JoeG

Edda, I bought tix in Dec and Feb and had the same problem with the calendar. It would show the correct day/date on the initial screen but when I went to purchase the tix, it showed the correct date but listed the following day as the travel day. On both occasions, my email sncf confirmation showed the date only (which was correct) and I received the correct tix when I collected them at the station. I just figured that it's a glitch w/their English program. You could always book the tix by phone if you're still concerned.

Also, for our Feb trip we had my in-laws (who are seniors) with us and I noticed that not all of the trains on a given day offered the cheaper senior rate so perhaps this is what you're seeing also.

Thank you, Christina, JoeG and mvor,
I will wait one more day to get an e-mail answer from the sncf office. Then I will book the tickets, your explanations made sense. JoeG, I am sure after a long flight and the passport with the true dates I would have a hard time taking three years off my age!
Thanks, Edda

For some reason SNCF has been getting the return day, but not date wrong for months now.
As for the senior fares, we just bought a ticket for grandmere and the adult fares non ref/non exchange were cheaper than the senior fare, so this is what SNCF issued.
An interesting note, these fares were not available for minors, so I ended up paying 5 euros more for the kids tix, than the adults.

It seems to me that its two months and not 60 days. The iDTGV ( http://www.idtgv.com ) can be booked much further out as well as the eurostar tickets.