SNCF Website troubles
 

For the past year I have not been able to buy any tickets on-line via the new TGV website for Switzerland. I never had a problem when I could buy tickets from the sncf.fr site. I get a message that says my order has been cancelled due to a technical difficulty. Has anyone else had this problem?

Have you tried using the www.sbb.ch site instead? Click on the "E" at the top for the English version.

Sometimes a site not working for you can be a browser issue. If you have trouble when using Firefox switch to IE and vice versa...

The tickets are more expensive on sbb,ch for some reason.

> via the new TGV website for Switzerland.

You are having trouble with this site?

http://www.sncf.ch/

I have not had the exact problem you are having (order has been cancelled) but a couple of times I have received "Erreur" message bofore it could show me offers. Otherwise I have bought already the tickets for about 5 trips and it worked fine.

Even with the following French site direct, I often have problems and needed some patience.

And in my experience buying through sbb.ch has been more expensive too.

http://www.voyages-sncf.com/leisure/fr/launch/home/

Just tried again from my Mac at home and it still doesn't work. Got the same error message that I always get. I wrote to SNCF 24 hours ago but they haven't yet responded within the 24 hours that they said they would.

I give up. I've tried with Firefox, Safari, IE and on two different computers and it just doesn't work. I get as far as entering my credit card number and then confirmation and then instead of confirming my purchase, it cancels it and says there is an erreur technique.

Hi,
I had loads of problems with the "Belgian" SNCF site (www.tgv-europe.be), as I kept getting the "erreur technique" message too, no matter what browser I used.

Eventually I worked out that the message would appear when my selected journey/fare wasn't available, even if previous pages had said that there was availability. Not sure if they've fixed the problem yet, or indeed if it's the same problem on the Swiss site, but it might be worth playing around with dates/times to see.

Well, trying again today from work and now it won't let me pick out Lausanne (CH), where the little pick list comes up, nor will it let me enter the (CH). It just keeps give me a message that my arrival or destination city is not in their database. And three times I have contacted them and not once has anyone written back. Really frustrating. And the Swiss site says the tickets are not available. It's less than 90 days so I don't know what the problem is.

Your problem with the Swiss Rail site may be related to the fact that new timetables will go into effect on 14 December. Perhaps they haven't been loaded yet.

What is your route and date of travel?

Sat, 31 Jan - Lausanne to Paris
Sun, 1 Feb - Paris to Quimper
and these two I was waiting until 90 days
Sat, 7 Feb - Quimper to Paris
Sun, 8 Feb - Paris to Lausanne

And I just tried buying only the Paris to Quimper part of the trip and still got the same message.

Wait til after mid-December when the new tariffs and timetables kick in. (I think 12-12 is the exact date). These are trains that cross borders, hence the mutual agreements between the individual countries and their rail systems will need to have come into force before you can book. That happens every December. There is no panic for your dates, plenty of time, so mark your calendar for now.

Have you tried the French site that kappa suggested? I can get a certain distance with it (Paris-Quimper PREMS at €22 at 10.05a.m.), but I am sure that you will understand that I am not going to buy a ticket to check it further.

Does SNCF have protocols that block people outside the EU from getting the same deals that are available in France?

If you know the secret, there is still a way to book tickets in English on the SNCF site. I did successful dummy bookings for your dates for Lausanne-Paris and Paris-Quimper.

Go to www.voyages-sncf.com. Click on the "Train" tab at the top of the page between the "Accueil" and "Hotel" tabs. On the new page you get click anywhere in the long URL at the very top of the screen. Find LANG=FR and change it to LANG=UK. Hit the Enter key and you'll get a booking page in English. For Lausanne-Paris enter Lausanne as your departure point and Paris Montparnasse 1 et 2 as your arrival point.

For Paris-Quimper enter Paris Lyon as your departure point and Quimper as your arrival point.

Sorry, but I have already done all of this. I get beyond the point where I pick my trains and enter my credit card and instead of confirming. And when I try the site that kappa talks about when it asks which country I live in it automatically switches me over to the Swiss site. I've tried it in both English and French thinking maybe the English site doesn't work but no go. And what is even stranger is that the four Help requests that I have sent in the past four days have all gone unheeded. But basically I have given up and just want to thank everyone for their assistance anyway.

I didn't enter any credit card, of course, but I didn't have any trouble with the site kappa names (www.sncf.ch).

I reserved a cheap fare from Lausanne to Paris on 1/31, for pickup at the train station, and everything went fine -- I just got to the point where it wanted a CC number, and left, though. It never asked me where I lived, it doesn't need to know that. Of course, if you asked for free mail delivery, that would be different than what I was doing, where it only asked for your name, and email address.

Well, then it must be my computer because on that site I am not even given the option of picking up tickets in Lausanne. Only Geneva or having them mailed to me.

Retirer votre billet en boutique SNCF muni de la carte bancaire utilisée pour le paiement. Les avantages
Boutique Rail Europe - SNCF
Rue de Lausanne 11
GENEVE 1201

Ouvert du lundi au vendredi de 8h30 à 18h00 et le samedi de 9h30 à 13h30.

Attention : Pour tout retrait de billet en boutique SNCF hors de France, des frais d'un montant de 8CHF supplémentaires vous seront demandés sur place.

Update. It dawned on me that perhaps my card was being blocked because 18 months ago in the middle of purchasing some tickets the SNCF website went down, I didn't get the email confirmation from them and the next day purchased tickets only to have two sets of tickets show up. And then it took months to get it resolved.

So the other day I used my husband's credit card minutes after getting denied with my card again et voila! Now I have tickets. And I've written to SNCF asking them why they have blocked my card.