Refund on TGV ticket advice please
 

I purchased two round trip tickets on the SCNF France website for 80 E each. I selected the print tickets at home option but for some reason I kept getting a"We apologize for the technical error.". I took this printout to the SCNF ticket booth in Paris and they hand stamped the paperwork and allowed us to get on the train.

On the way back from Amsterdam, I showed them the printout and the stamped ticket from Paris and they refused to honor it since we were in Amsterdam and the train was TGV not SCNF. I had to pay for two tickets at 240E each to get back to Paris.

Any suggestions on how to get my money back?

TGV stands for Très Grande Vitesse, the name for the French high speed trains. You must have been on the Thalys.

Write to the customer relations office. How else do you imagine?

It is the Netherlands railways that apparently erroneously made you pay again, so they are the ones who will be reimbursing you. You may have to involve the SNCF to confirm that you were in possession of a valid ticket.

I have the impression that Thalys is not related to the SNCF. Could the OP have taken the wrong train?

<i>Thalys is an international high-speed train operator originally built around the high-speed line between Paris and Brussels. This track is shared with Eurostar trains that go from Paris or Brussels to London via Lille and the Channel Tunnel and with French domestic TGV trains. Thalys reaches Amsterdam and Essen, and its system is operated by Thalys International. Its capital is divided up between SNCF (62%), SNCB (28%)and Deutsche Bahn (10%).</i>

seat61.com good info refunds are rarely given on cheapo tics

if u paid with CC file a merchant reversal for an immediate

credit that will hold up if investigation condirms u are due.

If u were bright enough to get trip insurance

there may be some cover there.

> TGV stands for Très Grande Vitesse

Off topic but the correct is Train à Grande Vitesse

Thanks for your responses (except for Qwovadis' comment questioning my intelligence. You know nothing about me so please do not judge whether I was bright enough to purchase trip insurance.)

I just pulled the tickets out of my carry on and realized they were both issued by SNCF. I am so confused now since the conductor said it was because we were in Amsterdam and the ticket was not confirmed, even though I had a confirmation number.

This could be easier than I thought because I am only dealing with one train operator not two.

<i>I am so confused now since the conductor said it was because we were in Amsterdam and the ticket was not confirmed, even though I had a confirmation number.</i>

Didn't you have a seat assignment?

Where was the money for the return trip collected? In the Amsterdam train station or on the train?

Yes We had a seat assignment and a confirmation number and ID with the correct name and a print out saying "Due to a technical problem your tickets cannot be created at the moment. Please accept our apology and come back later to print your tickets." .

The ticket was purchased on the train, The ticket agent said they could not do anything and perhaps the train agent could help us.

<i>"Due to a technical problem your tickets cannot be created at the moment. Please accept our apology and come back later to print your tickets." .</i>

It sounds like you did not have the actual ticket.

I don't understand this. YOu shouldn't have waited until you were on the trip en route without a ticket. I don't blame the conductor for saying they couldn't honor some piece of paper which wasn't a ticket. If I understand that correctly, you never bothered to get a ticket printed before you boarded. That's what you always do when you can't print them, you get them printed out or a ticket from the window or machine before you board. Brussels is one of the few places outside Paris that actually has a SNCF office, also. I thin they call it Raileurope now, but it handles SNCF business. The message clearly said you are supposed to get tickets printed, not just forget about it.

I don't really know if you are due a refund or not, but you can try from SNCF, sure.

Trip insurance wouldn't cover any situation like this as far as I know, if you didn't pick up a ticket before boarding a train and so you had to buy a full fare one.

If the fare was collected on the train, it is indeed the SNCF that you should contact.

<i>if you didn't pick up a ticket before boarding a train and so you had to buy a full fare one.</i>

plus a fine?

Christina, it was not that we just "forgot" about printing it. We tried. We bought the tickets as a "Print from Home" option. The SNCF website would not allow us to print it. We tried in Paris and we tried in Amsterdam. We asked the hotel concierge if they could help. I went to the train station 2 hours early to seek help. They told me they could not help us.

They told us there was no way we could print them at the station. I tried to get help at the information booth, we stood in two different lines to ask if they could help us, I went to a kiosk and tried to print them there. The ticket window told us to get on the train and see if the conductor could help us. Another train came in before ours and I asked the conductor on that train if they thought it would be ok. HE said he did not know, but to get on the train and work with the conductor on that train.

We are working with SNCF to see if there is anything they can do.

Michael, We didn't pay a fine, but just two very expensive on the spot tickets.

ltr,

Did you specify the U.S. as the country of origin? I recall something (and I may be wrong about it) about such a refusal to print because the country of origin was not in Europe. Obviously too late for you, except as a future consideration.

<i>Another train came in before ours and I asked the conductor on that train if they thought it would be ok. HE said he did not know, but to get on the train and work with the conductor on that train. </i>

In the future, only get on the scheduled train. It might have helped in this instance, although it would depend on how bureaucratic the conductor is or feels that day.