I contacted SBB rail for TGV intercountry PREMS tickets. They cannot sell those to me. Must be an arrangement they have with SNCF. The prices they quoted me for tickets they could sell for TGV Paris/Geneva were too high.

So Francophile03, I'm back to your idea of doing these online. I don't see why it can't work - just to be sure, I will add my brother's U.K. address as my own. Do you live in the States? If so, can you tell me when you bought the PREMS tickets last? And all you had to do was print out tickets and show up at the train?? I'm thinking that maybe I misread the need to pick up at the Station -- maybe that only applies to Area 3 countries. Very complicated since they avoid the issue of U.S. altogether.

If anyone else from the U.S. has experience buying SNCF PREMS (or any discounted) tickets online and printing them at home, then showing up at the train with them, please let me know! Of course, as always, any other tips are welcome!

Thanks much - the 60-day advance purchase PREMS ends tomorrow, so I am anxious to get them. If I can get the 3 tickets for 120E round trip, it will save me almost $300!

Gambader:

What is SBB? In any event, it's easy to buy PREM tickets online. No need to put in anyone else's address - in fact, DON'T do that! Just leave France in as the country and continue with the purchase.

Yes, all you need to do is print out the tickets and take them with you and make sure you have a picture ID. That's if they're PREM tickets. If they're not, you're back to the option of picking them up at the station. Either way, it's pretty easy. I do it frequently with no problems.

It doesn't matter whether you live in USA or anywhere. You can buy TGV GVA-PAR Prem's online (leave your country to France), print the ticket at home by yourself. Nothing else to do before gettign on your train.

I have done this GVA > PAR > GVA more than a few times in last years and again I will be travelling to Paris in 10 days exactly with above procedure.

To be precise, PAR/GVA is not considered an inter-country rail line. Funny but officially you will enter Switzerland once you got at Geneva Station where FRENCH custom/boarder police offices are located. So be ready with your passport when you arrive at Geneva station.

St.Cirq, SBB is Schweiz Bundes Bahn (Swiss Federal Railway). French version is CFF (Chemin de Fer Fédéral).

You used to be able to buy Prem's tickets only oneline on SNCF site but since a few months SNCF Boutiques sell it too. I don't think you can buy the Prem's anywhere else.

Hi Gambader -- I purchased and printed out two PREM tickets online for travel earlier this month between Paris and Avignon (I live here in the USA). As other posters have stated, there's no need to provide an address. I left FRANCE as the country and made sure to select "Print Tickets Online" (or something close to that wording). PREM tickets were 25 Euro each way, and the conductor seemed familiar with them when I presented them.

SBB is short for Swiss Rail.

No, you can't buy the PREM tickets from SBB. They are available only from SNCF.

Yes, I live in the States and had no problem ordering them online in May 2005. There's a selection that's clearly visible for you to choose to print the tickets online. Yes, you just print the tickets and show up at the train station. Use regular printer paper. On the same page as the ticket will be instructions telling you to bring i.d., etc. Just leave as is and don't think of cutting out the ticket portion.

If the ticket is paying for a reserved seat, there will be something similar to a ticket stub inserted in the slot above your seat number aboard the train. After the train leaves the station, much later, the conductors come around and you give them your pritned ticket along with your passport. They check both, punch the ticket, and return both to you.

Just choose France as your country when you're ready to purchase online since there's no option to choose the US.

> If the ticket is paying for a reserved seat, there will be something similar to a ticket stub inserted in the slot above your seat number aboard the train.

NO, not on TGV trains (based on my experience with TGV's GVA-PAR, Lyon-Marseille, etc).

How super-helpful all of you are!! I will buy them today and save $100ss!! Since more than one of you has had recent experience from the U.S., I am quite comforted.

Wish there were a similar deal on the Swiss side for advance purhcase - no matter how I calculate it (and I have a 3-page spreadsheet!), the swiss pass, swiss card, and full price all end up costing me about the same on various different iterations of our plans.

Thanks VERY much, all!

Danielle

Can someone explain to me why I needed to have reservations/paper tickets on certain trains with my France railpass this past May. I totally get that I need reservations for the main TGV trains plus a small fee along with the pass. But why was I required to get paper tickets with the pass with no fee for certain trains that were not TGV. I thought the whole purpose for the pass was to just jump on/off regular trains without having to stand in line for tickets?

parisnow:

I expect that was to make sure you didn't grab a seat that someone else had already reserved and paid for.

Hi P,

>why I needed to have reservations/paper tickets on certain trains with my France railpass <

Some trains are reserved seat only. If you have a railpass, you must purchase a seat reservation.

On some trains reservations are optional. for crowded trains it is necessary to buy a reservation if you want a seat.

Thanks. Now how come when I did have the tickets with the railpass no charge with a seat number printed on it, people wouldn't get out of my seat and told me that those trains didn't have seat reservations? <font color="blue"> Hence, how do I know which trains need seat reservations and which ones don't?</font>

Hi P,

&gt;people wouldn't get out of my seat and told me that those trains didn't have seat reservations?&lt;

They lied.

Did you ask the conductor to remove them?

Hi I:
No!

Better yet, I was on one train with a ticket and seat number. I kept walking from car to car and back looking for the seat. I think they were missing a car because the numbers had a big gap. Again I was told that the train didn't have seat reservations. Hey, my motto is live and learn; adapt and overcome.

I had trouble with the sncf website a couple of weeks ago; I discovered that the problem was that I tried purchasing the insurance option they now have with PREM tix. You cannot print the tix if you make that choice; I decided to forget about the insurance, printed the tix, with no problems.

I just bought a PREM in July with no problem and printed it. I'm glad grandmere cleared up her problem, as a few people have claimed they couldn't print them, but maybe left off pertinent details like that.

I don't think I've had any ticket over the seat on TGVs when I had a reservation, either. I do remember some tickets in those seat slots on some other trains.

Parisnow, could it be you were on the wrong car? Now I'm pretty good with details like that, but I got on the wrong TGV car a couple months ago, so there was something about the numbers on the cars that were unclear or not visible to me, I remember. I thought someone was in my seat, also, but when I showed my ticket, they explained it was the next car over.

I've had a French railpass and I don't recall any trains requiring a reservation other than TGVs. I thought that was still the rule, but maybe they are making some others require reservations, also. It's also possible they have some reservation rules for railpass holders now that they didn't before, to try to control occupancy. that wouldn't surprise me, actually.

It is nice to not worry about that, but one of the main points of the pass is supposed to be saving money. It does if you have several long-distance expensive TGV routes in a short time. You can just hop on a lot of small, local trains, also, as they don't require reservations and some don't even make them.

We had reserved seats with our PREM tix from Caen to Paris in May (not TGV) and now have reserved for Paris-Strasbourg, regular train, also.