carcassone

I figured out how to display the PREM's fare on SNCF's English site. I found two different ways:

Path One:
- go to http://www.sncf.com/indexe.htm
- click on "Information Schedule and Booking"
- click on "Print your ticket"
- In the 2nd paragraph: "You can print your ticket yourself Prem's, Last Minute Offers or your Thalys ticket..." click on the link "Prem's" and it will take you to the PREM's site; just like the French one except everything is now in English!

Path Two:
- go to http://www.sncf.com/indexe.htm
- click on "Information Schedule and Booking"
- check the box "Express reservation at the best price", this is the trick to bring up PREM's fare
- fill in your travel information as usual and click search
- this will also work if you click on "Advanced search" eventhough the advanced search page doesn't say anything about PREM's, it remembers you checked "Express reservation at the best price"

To get a feel of how this works, I recommend searching for something 6 weeks in advance, mid-week, 7am. This should bring up some PREM's fare.

To select a fare:
- click on "Options" to specify seat preference
- click on "choose this outward journey"
- click on "See details of your travel" and it will show the automatic seat assignment

A few words about "Advanced search":
This is useful for us travelling with a child as special family fare will show up once we've entered our age ranges. This will also display PREM's and 1st class "promo" fares where as on the "PREM's site" only 2nd class fares are displayed. For our journey, the only PREM's fare are either 7am or 9pm. However, we found 1st class promo fare 50e, which in some cases, same or cheaper than the non-PREM 2nd class fares. So the "Advanced search" provides more options.

For 1st class "Club Four" seating, this seat preference option only shows up if you entered a total of 4 passengers.

Our only glitch is that when entering passenger names, it only provided one box for last name and one box for first names. So we put in our last name and all 4 first names separated by comma. What happened is that in the "See details" page, it had the 1st passenger with all 4 first names and no names for the rest of the passengers. Since we didn't get PREM's fare, we were not allowed to print the tickets so this is not a problem for now. I assume we can get it straighten out when we pick up our tickets in Paris, right? Or should I call/email them beforehand? I think this problem shows up because we listed 4 passengers to get "Club Four". This would not be a problem if you add each passenger individually. But then you may end up not sitting next to each other as a group.

ira

Thanks, Carcassone.

I've posted this to "Helpful Information: France"

MorganB

Carcassone, only Prem tickets and last minute half price tickets are nomative. So you dont need to do anything at all. Passenger names dont need to be on your tickets.

carcassone

Thanks, MorganB. One less thing to worry about...

JWard

Carcsaaone,
Thank you for your advise. I had not had any luck finding the Prem fares until I read your post. Yesterday I purchased 2 round trip TGV tickets from Paris to Avignon for a total of 100 Euro. Thanks again,
Ward

mattruby

I just booked 5 prem tix Paris to Avignon 9 Sept for 125e total on the English site!!

Its a fantastic service and I had no troubles at all.

Lets just hope my luck continues when I actually try and use the tix!

6 weeks to go...

dln

Merci, carcassone. We're off to France in about two months, so it's coming up to the time that I need to start checking those PREM fares daily. I hope we can get the same fares as JWard was lucky enough to get.

laurie_ann

The first option worked great. The second not so great. It seems that "prems" are not available to all destinations. On the first option, you can see the cities on the list that have "prems". On the second option, because you type the name of the city yourself, you won't know if it is a city for which "prem" is available. My destination is Bayeux in Normandy from Paris and it is not on the "prem" list, so a search for "express best price" turned up only full price and no "prem". Interestingly Caen in Normandy is on "prem" list (and one way to get to Bayeux although there are also direct trains is through Caen, the savings for "prem" isn't really worth the time and hassle of changing trains). Using the first option might be most helpful when you are first planning your trip, so you can choose a destination for which you know there are "prems" offered. Thanks for the tip.

mattruby

Laurie - Ann

My PREM Paris - Avignon tix werent in that little box on the left either. I just went through the booking and scheduled section and types in Paris - Avignon and the date / time not the express choice) and 2 PREM fares came up for the day (along with all normal priced tix) - one at 50e and one at 25e (guess which I chose?).

Have another go and you may get some luck.

laurie_ann

Not the little box on the first page, but after you go in through "print your ticket" and then "prems", there are two lists ("from" and "to" of cities) I was referring to. Paris-Avignon are choices available but not Paris-Bayeux.

kappa

Laurie-Ann, you could try one of the followings.

Buy PREM'S tickets for Paris-Cherbourg at EUR20.00 and just get off your train at Bayeux. Most, if not all,the trains Paris St.L-Cherbourg seem to stop at Bayeux.

On the SNCF's ordinary ticket reseravtio page (not PREM'S), buy DECOUVERT SEJOUR (as called on the French page)ticket for EUR22.20 for Paris-Bayeux. For this ticket, you may have to buy a round trip (22.20 x 2).

Full fare for Paris-Bayeux is EUR 29.50 so it's not like PREM'S EUR25.00 vs full fare EUR70.80 for Paris-Avigon though.

irish

Hi Carcassone, I'm trying to purchase a PREM ticket on SNCF but USA is not a listed country. Can you help me?

Travelnut

I'm not Carcassonne, but I know you leave the country as "France" and you can pick up your ticket at a train station window with the credit card you used.

carcassone

Hi Irish, Travelnut is correct, just leave the country France. In fact, I'm so used to ignoring that field it didn't even occur to me to note that in my tip.

liz10

The info on purchasing PREM's fares in this thread was a huge help, but I still have a couple of questions I'm hoping someone can help with.
We're 2 adults and a 9 year old. I couldn't find any place to enter a child's age so the reservation shows for 3 adults. Are there children's fares and/or does it matter if a child uses a ticket designated for an adult?

Also, does it matter if I have a different last name than the other 2? There is only one surname field on the reservation form.

many thanks

ira

Hi liz,

>We're 2 adults and a 9 year old. I couldn't find any place to enter a child's age <

PREMS fares are for "adults and children over 4 years old".

>does it matter if I have a different last name than the other 2? <

No. 3 unrelated people can travel together.

francophile03

Hi, I'm trying to understand the purchase of the PREM fares. Is this how it works? You can purchase the PREM tickets online, then you'll receive a confirmation email and then you can either print the tickets or pick them up at any SNCF ticket office?

Pls. correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks!

BTW, if you get a destiation combination of PREM and full fares instead of both PREM fares are you still allowed to print your tickets?

carcassone

Hi liz10,

Glad to hear that my instructions are still useful. I wasn't sure since I did it more than 6 months ago and these web pages are constantly changing. I think a child's age only matters if you purchase one of their "family discount" packages where at least 1 passenger must be under 12. It shouldn't be an issue for single PREM's fare.

Hi francophile03,

Yes, for PREM's fare, you can print your ticket at home or pickup in France. For pickup up, you must bring you confirmation number and the same credit card that you used to pay online. It was very easy and took all of 10 seconds.

Not sure about printing combo PREM/Full fare tickets. My guess would be no but you can always give it a try. Worse case is you won't be offer the option to print but, instead, options to pickup in France or mail to you.

If you try, let us know how it turns out.