SNCF train ticket online booking payment difficulty?
 

For years I have booked train tickets on www.voyage-sncf.com site, printed my own tickets or retrieved from train station in France, paid with credit cards issued in Canada with no problem.

Today I tried to book tickets for July from Paris to Amsterdam , no problem each step till I filled up credit card info, then it said the payment is refused, I checked with card company, they said no transaction was asked. No luck with other cards, non with www.thalys.com either.

Is anyone with the same difficulty? Anyway to get around it?

Is a puzzlement. I did it quite successfully with my Capitol One card just the other month. Perhaps you chose an hour when some link in the internet chain was down for maintenance? You might try another time of day.

Would you mind posting how much in Euro was the transaction for?

210 Euro for 3 one way first class from Paris to Amsterdam.

I have tried several times on and off whole day, will try again tomorrow.

Here is a related thread with my experience:

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...ed-at-sncf.cfm

Here is my experience at www.voyages-sncf.com. I would hope others with post with purchase experience facts to get better idea of what is going on:

5/30 1st class PREM for €68 - Success
6/1 1st class Thalys SMOOVE for €158 - CC refused
6/2 (24hrs later) 1st class SMOOVE for €158 - CC refused
6/3 (24hrs later) 1st class SMOOVE for €158 - CC refused
6/6 (3 days later) 1st class SMOOVE for €158 - CC refused
then immediately without changing computer, nor clearing cookies or histories, or getting away from www.voyages-sncf.com I immediately retried:

6/6 (1 min later) 2st class Thalys SMOOVE for €90 - success.

It is difficult to draw a clear conclusion based on mine or your data alone. But either 1st class Thalys tickets are not available to U.S. or Canadian CC holders -- odd restriction, or there is some kind of cc threshold between €90 and €158 above which the cc transactions, at least to U.S. and Canadian CC holders, get rejected. They are not even bothering to perform a transaction.

I hope others will chime in with actual recent success/failure data.

Greg, many thanks for the info. I will try again for other routes tomorrow.

Perhaps they have changed to the same system that Renfe is using, verification by VISA and MC.

I am not quite sure, as no verification window coming up.

I got no verification window, either.

Are you trying to do the transaction in English or French? It seems to make a difference. The last tickets we purchased we did in French because the page kept directing us to Rail Europe, which I will not deal with.

Maybe if we all make a point of giving our local official French Tourist Office a return serve when we receive their next promo email someone may get around to getting to the bottom of this. Or maybe not.

Maybe not!

Alternatives for booking Paris-Amsterdam:

Try www.thalys.com (if you select France, you may end up with the same payment sytsem, or they may have their own, I can't be sure)

Try www.nshispeed.nl making sure you get the self-print/e-ticket option, as being the Dutch railways you won't be able to collect from the station at the Paris end.

Voyages-sncf has always been good for credit card acceptance, I've had no reports about non-acceptance, but ater 10 years of running seat61.com, I know that credit cards aren't as international as we all think they are, glitches often arise. Always good to own several!

"The last tickets we purchased we did in French because the page kept directing us to Rail Europe, which I will not deal with."

That because either

(a) you're from the USA, and admitted this, as the search results then open automatically on Rail Europe, anyone from the US can book in English at www.tgv-europe.com but MUST select 'Canada' or 'Great Britain' or (my favourote) 'Afghanistan' as your country.

or

(b) You're from Canada, Australia, etc., and didn't click the 'Continue to tgv-europe.com' link in the pop up box that says 'we'd like to divert you to out local website' ('local' meaning Rail Europe).

For anyone who doesn't understand the importance of booking with tgv-europe.com not raileurope.com, I've seen Paris-Nice 35 euros ($50) on tgv-europe.com (the correct official French Railways price), $110 plus $7 fees at raileurope.com.

They have made a 'commercial' decision to suppress the cheapest fare levels.

I used www.voyages-sncf.com in French. Successes/failures noted used this setting using the same credit card. www.thalys.com also refused my card. This was not surprising since the last payment page is similar the www.voyages-sncf.com with different color scheme. The merchant code at Thalys site is identical to the SNCF site.

After observing that lower priced transactions seemed to be acceptable, I did an experiment if I could buy one ticket at a time. The seat assignment process would not allow me to have a good control on seating.
1. From my failed transaction, I knew certain "cote a cote" seats were available.
2. I requested "near" option specifying that particular "cote a cote" seat I knew was available using iExplorer. It gave me a "solo" seat instead so no chance of specifying an adjacent seat.

The acceptance/refusals, at least from a U.S. card holder, has nothing to do with the card itself, the cookies setting, or the time/day of transaction. The difference between success and failure seems to the amount of transaction in question. However, we need more data points.

Many thanks for all the info.

On sncf site and Thalys site, I always stay at french pages, never had any problem (last booking in February) till now.

I didn't go into tgv-europe site, thought it would be the same as raileurope.ca

I will try again tonight after over 24 hours as sugggested by Greg.

There is no purpose to using tgv-europe.com, I think the main (or only) reason people do is that they can't read French. It isn't raileurope, though, although it may refer you to it if you say you are in Canada.

If you stay on voyages-sncf, there isn't any chance to "admit" to being in the US as it never asks you where you are from when you are searching. So I dont understand the statement about being switched to Raileuope, it must have been the tgv-europe website. I don't really understand how people get on that website as the voyages-sncf website doesn't even mention it as far as I can see. I think it used to send you somewhere if you clicked on the English flag but now it doesn't even have one.

Have you checked with your credit card company?

It's possible internet/international transactions (or any over €100) are automatically fraud protected/blocked unless you phone them first to alert them.

Christina, the information from Seat 61 is correct (no surprise when you see his stunningly thorough website). A year or two ago Canada escaped the automatic Rail Euurope bump so any American can now choose Canada and avoid it too. Why? Better choices, lower prices than Rail Europe. And why use tgv-europe rather than its sister site from SNCF? Precisely because it is in English. I've bought tickets in French too, but the rail system is complicated enough that I can work more efficiently in English.

The amount of transaction (such as over Euro100) on credit cards isn't an issue, as prior to try to book train tickets, I have prepaid thousands euro on hotel reservations in France.

As mentioned before, I have booked many times in French without any problem, never used English site yet.

Again, thanks for all the input.

I had difficulty purchasing on SNCF April 2010. I can't remember the specifics, but I was frantic about losing the prem fares. My cc was rejected three times. I waited until early the next morning when I knew it was business hours, and it worked. I got the same fare also (so it wasn't a lower fare).

I've purchased on this site many times without any problems before.

Just purchased first class tickets, Amsterdam-Brussels, on thalys.com last friday, for 3 people. And then another, Brussels - Paris, last sunday, for 3. And then again yesterday, Paris-Strasbourg, for 4 people on voyages-sncf.com (in French, if that makes a difference). I didn't have any problem with my CC (no verification asked) and all transactions went through. I just did one transaction/day. Perhaps it's just random glitches you're experiencing?

Anyway, wish you luck!

Would you mind posting how much in Euro was each successful transaction?

greg:

1st Class, Thalys, Smoove, 3 people €135 total

1st Class, Thalys, Smoove, 3 people €177 total

2nd Class, SNCF, Prem, 4 people €100 total

Well... sesms that I'm not the only having these problems. Have tried tgv-europe.com,voyages-sncf.com and idtvg.com and have been rejected on them all. Got lucky on Thalys.com I guess and was able to book yesterday.

Btw, no response from customer service yet. I sent them an email like 2 hours ago.

JoyC,
It looks like you did not retry the €210 for 3 people transaction?
So your €177 for three people was successful, but my €158 for 2 people was not. hmm.. puzzling, I wonder it has something to do with per person price. Your €210 for 3 ( €70 per person) and my €158 for 2 (€79 per person) orders got rejected while other lesser value per person transactions (€34, €45, €45, €59, €25) went through??? I hope others would post more details than just "I had/didn't have problems" to see if this is a random financial glitch or a systematic behavior.

greg:

I hope you are not confusing me with <b>JudyC</b>??

I don't have a transaction for €210. All my transactions went through and were successful.

FYI, I tried to book again in French today, still got rejected.

I compared the fares between voyages-sncf and Rail Europe from San Sebastian, Spain to Paris, stopping for two nights along the way, and found RE to be a better deal. I ordered the tickets Sunday and I had no problem with my Cap One card. The reservations are included and the tickets are scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, Weds. It was very easy and the tickets were in dollars. They would have cost more from voyages with the exchange rate.

I have been trying using Multiple cards (Bank of America issued) and all of them got declined from scnf-voyages..Not sure if there is a sure-shot way of getting the tickets online..

I was trying to book 6 tickets from Paris - Basel on TGV Lyria for Oct1..

Rohit_Kumar - You might be exceeding SNCF's limits for online purchases with foreign credit cards. I emailed them after I had difficulty, and in their response they said that purchases were limited to one in 24 hours, with a total of €300 per week (€150 per day).

Here's a link to another thread where I posted the excerpt from their email:

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...edit-cards.cfm

So it is the amount of purchase with a foreign credit card dependent after all. How did JoyC succeed in purchasing €177 SMOOVE tickets? I wonder if JoyC used a credit card not deemed "foreign?" With this type of restriction, is the strategy to sit together is to split the group into less than €150 purchases and try best to find a group of seats close to each other? Sometimes this means a group of two need to be split into two different purchases?

These limits certainly do pose challenges for people traveling together. My purchase was small (€32), and it still didn't go through. SNCF offered no explanation for that. I wonder if you could split the order and use different credit cards to avoid the issue of being over the limit.

Number one thing to do is to call credit card company which may have put a temp block on card because of an odd looking transaction. This can be random, so previous success will not mean subsequent transactions go smoothly. If that is the issue a call will resolve it!

I tried booking two one-way TGV PREM tickets on voyages-scnf.com yesterday. Made the reservation in French and was also denied the reservation after putting in the credit card info. Sent an email inquiry to scnf, then later in the day received a message from my credit card company (Chase Hyatt card) that they were questioning the activity. I called Chase back today to authorize the purchase and they unblocked the transaction. I waited until it had been 24 hours since my last attempt on voyages-scnf, as I had read that suggestion here. This time, again in French, purchase went through without a snag.

By the way, I compared the prices on Rail Europe, tgv-europe and voyages-scnf. Rail Europe was $294, tgv-europe and voyages-sncf were both $160 (one way Paris to Nice).

I had same the issue, multiple rejects on different rail booking websites and with different credit cards. I make dozens of transactions often in different countries and online every month with no problems.

I called one of the credit card issuers in Scotland, and they "unblocked" the transaction - they told me to wait 5 mins before trying and then it was fine.

I suspect their is a lot of fraud in buying train tickets so the credit card companies automatic system readily reject transactions.

Also bear in mind that some sites may reject a card that's been declined by a bank once, even if it is accepted the next time. This 'times out' after a day or two.

bookmarking

Related may be of interest -

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...rd-foibles.cfm