I am planning a trip to Paris in Feb and then on to Geneva. I would like to take the tgv train but at the site www.tgv.com the US is not listed as one of the countries that can buy tickets. You are referred to www.raileurope.com which is much more expensive and incomplete (for example reservations though required are not available). Has anyone had experience with reservations on these trains particularly through the sncf site??

I had the tickets mailed to a hotel in London and told SNCF that I live in the UK. I called the hotel first to make sure they were OK with it and it took a little while to find the tickets. If I recall correctly the cheapest fares permit you to print your own tickets so it does not matter where you are.

Yhis recent thread should explain how to do it. I believe there have been some changes since I last bought tickets on the SNCF site:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34549966

~Liz

Hi Linda,

Purchase your tickets 60 days in advance at http://www.voyages-sncf.com/

You might get a greatly discounted fare PREM fare. 45E 2cl on the TGV.

If a 'greatly discounted' fare on the SNCF site is 43 euros at 1.35 euro to $ this would be about $58 but Raileurope has a $50 14-day advance. If you're 60 plus you can get a $58 fare good on any train, no adv purchase requirement. But RailEurope will charge you $11 per seat reservation and a $15 order fee. The order fee can be sidestepped by going thru one of their agents who won't charge it, such as great folks i buy passes from for years - Budget Europe (800-441-9413. In any case the total would be just a few bucks more than the sncf site fare and you would certainly have no problems getting it. Raileurope 800-438-7245. Full Raileurope fare = $87. since RailEurope is part owned by the SNCF is the reason perhaps Americans can't easily buy on the site (if that is true I'm not all that familiar with the site.

Here's my TGV experience:
My friend and I purchased TGV Prem fare tickets from www.voyages-sncf.com this past September for a Paris/Montpellier and then Montpellier /Paris trip that we took in October.
I remember that we had to dink around in order to get to the page that displayed the fare/schedule information in English. I don't know what the issue was, it just took a while for us to be able to get to the English language instructions.
We'd planned to print out the tickets but for some reason my friend accidentally selected the 'mail' option and it ended up being a hassle to try to get back to the screen that was going to allow us to print our tickets. She entered her US address and the tickets appeared in her mailbox in due course. No handling, shipping , or reservation fees were tacked on.

It was my first experience with TGV tickets, I was kinda surprised that the tickets were actually mailed to the US.

ttt

I had an experience similar to starspinners while navigating the sncf website- I stumbled on the English section as if by accident. I bought 14 days in advance and paid 50% the regular fare- remember the site is 6 hours ahead of us, so if you try to buy after 12 noon, you have crossed over to the next day, thus changing the "advance purchase time" by one day.( after 6 pm their time).

On printing the ticket- I couldn't do it, but I just took my email confirmation to a smyls ticket booth and they printed it for me.

Hi PAL,

I went to the raileurope site.

I clicked on TGV.

For all of the dates I searched (up to 60 days in advance) I find only 96$ each way, plus a fee for seat reservation.

Where did you find the $50 fare?

From a Raileurope product sheet that says Jan 2004 until further notice - i've not been sent a further notice so if it isn't available they were remiss in not sending me a further notice. ("Book Early" fare BU 1st tier $50). Now they are not always diligent in updating their product sheets but this is the info i have. Does say allotment only and once unavailable next possible fare will be quoted. I know there are few seats available at that price and none on some trains. But that's the current info i have.

Thanks

Ira: New product sheet from Raileurope today says the book early fare is $44! ("good from Dec 2004 until further notice&quotThis compares even better thanthe $50 fare of 2004 and says is valid for every day of travel with a 14-day advance purchase.

Hi Pal,

That is a very good fare.

How does one get it?

The website for Raileurope still says $96.

Ira: well it's on the RailEurope product sheet released Nov 2004, which says 2nd class fare is $87, not $96. Actually this lists a leisure first class fare at $88 one way. I'd say call RailEurope 800-438-7245 and ask them about it. All i know is they just sent us this product sheet with the $44 fare on it ("Book Early , code "BU 1st tier" fare). I don't know what's going on with their web site but i assume if they're sending this out to their agents it's valid, in fafct says it's valid 1/1/05 to 12/31/05.

You can get special APEX TGV fares for the route between Geneva and Provence, but not Paris, on the Raileurope web site.

Special fares come up for APEX if you look for Geneva-Nice, for example.