TGV from CDG to Marseille
 

I have read about the challenges people are experiencing lately with SNCF and other sites so I decided to look at Rail Europe. I am getting a fare for first class seats for 2 adults and 2 children for $312 one way ( all 4 tickets). The fares I am seeing on SNCF are comparable. Does this sound like a good fare for travel in August? I guess PREMS are not yet available but should I expect a much lower fare with a PREM ticket?

RailEurope nearly always charges premium prices and doesn't show the entire train schedule.

Re has long had plans to begin offering the same or about the same fares as its parent company, the SNCF or French railways does but is slowly doing that - and yes PREM fares I believe come on 4 months early so why not wait until then - you will always probably be able to get the $312 or equivalent euro fare. And BTW if buying any RE product I'd suggest calling Byron, at www.budgeteuropetravel.com, a RE agent and someone you can talk to and whom I have bought railpasses from for years - but if I were you I would wait until the PREM fares come on and see if you can score them - yes www.voyages-sncf.com site can be flummoxing to first-time users but lots has been posted here on how to make it works and folks are eager to help if you post your problems (like do not say you are an American but live in Timbuktoo!

As of right now, voyages SNCF and Rail Europe are showing the same schedules. I am actually looking at fares from CDG to Bandol. The only difference is SNCF is showing a prem first class fare of 257 euro ( about $334) which is more than the $312 Rail Europe is charging for the same train and ticket. Am i missing something and there is some other website I should be checking that has cheaper fares? Will the prem fare be even lower in the future? Is $312 a good fare for this ticket? Any thoughts appreciated

Pal, I did not see your reply before I posted. thanks!

$80 or so a piece for first-class travel seems like a good deal - with two kids you'll find much more room to wiggle in fifrst-class than 2nd class - probably IME lots of empty seats as well IME.

August PREMs aren't posted yet. If you choose July 5, though, you can see what are likely to be the same schedules, and there's a PREM fare of 214E showing, which would be about $278. Three months out from your travel date, you could likely find the same or similar, or better fare.

StCirq, when I put my August date in I am getting a prem fare for 1st class of 257E. Do you mean 2nd class prem's are not yet available?

This is the website I am looking at www.voyages-sncf.com

What I mean is the best PREM fares start showing up 3 months for your date of travel, so plugging in an August date at this point isn't going to give you the precise information you need - it's too early.

Are you using that website in French?

No not in French. I will wait until next month ( and attempt to use it in French) and see what comes up. I have done this before to get the Prems but it has been a few years. thanks for all the advice

It might help if you actually said what date you are talking about.

However, I can see PREMS (1st and 2nd class) for August 2nd, even though there is a notice claiming you can't book TGVs from 7/4 to 8/25 yet. YOU can pick it and go all the way through to the end, but I don't know what would happen if you actually tried to buy it. There are second class PREMs on that date for 30-40 euro for an adult. That is CDG to Marseille. I don't know what you are talking about Bandol.

I could also see a second class PREM on 8/7 for 30 euro. I don't see any PREMs for 8/13 yet. So it looks like you could do it for early AUgust, anyway, which is within four months for most dates. that would be around 120 euro for 4 people, pretty good. But $80 per person is about 60 euro each, so about double the PREM rate for 2nd class.

I just realized if you are talking about going to Bandol and not Marseille, the rate won't be the same and I thought you had to transfer, anyway, they don't have TGVs there, do they? So not sure what fare you are quoting.

ok, on August 3rd, a 2nd class PREM from CDG to Bandol is 67 euro. So that's a big difference from only going to Marseille, but maybe fares are higher on Saturday, don't know. So it does depend on your date, but 61 euro per person is not bad at all to Bandol from CDG, and if that is first class, that is great.

Christina,

Thanks for your advice, I appreciate it!

There are PREMS available now through the first week in September or so. I got an email recently from SNCF announcing this. On Voyages-sncf there are PREMS showing for Aug 15.

PREMs are typically not available earlier than 3 months before any given travel date. They are usually offered at 25€ and increase in price as tickets are sold. iDTGV tickets (there are currently no iDTGV trains from CDG) start at 19€ and also increase in price as tickets are sold. Rail Europe does not sell either PREM or iDTGV tickets though I have seen them occasionally offer very competitive prices on Eurostar tickets.

August is vacation month in France and trains to the coastal areas will be booked early, particularly near the beginning and end of the month so plan accordingly. I do not use Raileurope but I have heard that they will sometimes book on provisional schedules and change bookings once the SNCF schedules are set (usually 3 months before any given travel date but recently, sometimes earlier).

If you are taking the train after arriving CDG after a long transatlantic flight, allow a minimum of 3 hours between scheduled aircraft arrival and train departure. Flights can arrive late, Immigration lines can be lengthy, and baggage claim can take a good amount of time.

Because PREMS are typically not available earlier than 3 months in advance, the email I got from SNCF announcing their availability into August particularly caught my attention.
I was wrong, though, about the last travel date - it's August 25.

www.sncf.com/fr/promotion-train/vacances

If you are taking the train after arriving CDG after a long transatlantic flight, allow a minimum of 3 hours between scheduled aircraft arrival and train departure. Flights can arrive late, Immigration lines can be lengthy, and baggage claim can take a good amount of time.>

A problem with booking PREM tickets that cannot be changed and which if you miss it then you have to buy a full-fare ticket - so yes leave lots of time - if you are left twiddling thumbs for a few hours there are plenty of places in CDG to eat, have a coffee, shop, etc.

And a problem a French friend had recently returning to France was that her Air France plane (meme!) landed in the middle of the airport and had to wait for buses to take them into the terminal - she said it took about an hour all told just to get to the terminal itself/ IME this is not unusual.

I recently booked two Prems tickets - one from Paris to Brive for 15€ and one from Avignon to Paris for 25€. The first one I booked almost exactly 90 days before the date of travel, the second one was a little more than 90 days. In both cases when I checked back a few days later those cheapest fares were gone. In both cases the rail europe site was considerably more (2-4 times as much). So I think the Prems fares are worth trying to get.

I also had LOTS of trouble getting the site to work but eventually it did. Read this thread for my (and others) descriptions of the booking process: http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...ive-booked.cfm

http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/duplex-tgv.cfm

check out this thread to see why you may or may not want to ride in the upper level or lower level - there is a world of difference depending on what you desire.