Reserving seats on TVG trains

Is it wise to reserve seating on TVG trains from Paris to Avignon??

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What time of year will you be traveling?

You will most always get a better price the earlier you make your reservations - up to 2 months in advance. Your best prices will be found on the sncf website.

If you are traveling between June and end of August, I would highly recommend you make your resevations two months in advance of travel.

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It is not only wise, it is required, if you mean as an alternative that you just show up with a ticket or rail pass and hop on the train. You cannot do that. But if you do have a pass and are not travelling at a peak time you can pay for your reserved seat less expensively when you arrive in France than you will if you buy it in the US.

If you do *not* have a pass and book your travel as toutou suggests on www.voyages-sncf.com the fee for the reserved seat is included in the ticket price. For some time now you have been able to book up to 90 days ahead on all trains in France, longer on special TGVs called iDTGVs. so you should try to make your booking 90 days ahead if you want to get the lowest fares.

Advance purchase non-refundable %26quot;PREMS%26quot; fares on the Paris-Avignon route can be as low as 25€ one way. Read through this %26quot;how to%26quot; guide by MorganB. It will explain the various discount fares and guide you through the booking process. http://tinyurl.com/qpdef

Even if you want to buy full fare tickets to maintain flexibility and refundability I would still suggest you book ahead if you are travelling at a peak time. Some trains on this route can get very crowded.

Do not use RailEurope or any other N. American agent to book your travel, especially point-to-point tickets, unless you do not mind being significantly over-charged.

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Isn%26#39;t he just the smartest guy ! :) Really, that is why we love him.

Yes, I did notice I have been able to book tickets 90 days in advance, but I wasn%26#39;t sure if that was a benefit that was here to stay or not.

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Thank you you Toutou and Irishrovr

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That%26#39;s interesting. We have a Eurail pass for 3 days for this July. IrishRvr says it%26#39;s more expensive to go through Eurail for booking a TGV seat. I don%26#39;t know how we can do otherwise if we want to make sure we get a seat in such a busy season.

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Irish %26amp; toutou, great tips.

Have seen on Rail Europe a 2nd class 3 day fare for $195 per person. (about 150 Euro, I guess)

We would be doing 2 legs on the Paris-Avignon route and one day trip to %26#39;somewhere%26#39;. We would be travelling at probably pretty peak weekend times: Friday 2 pm south and Saturday morning north in September.

I checked and saw the cheapest listed one way fare for our general time range in may as 96 Euro, but cheaper for a later train.

Given that we are probably going to be pretty picky and inflexible about our travel times, do you think we might be better off w/ the Rail Europe offer or to try and see what bargains might come up closer to our travel date? I mean a 25 Euro fare would be great, but we aren%26#39;t going to be able to travel off peak on a weekday or whenever is the slowest time.

who knew that mastering the train system in France would be such a challenge. This is about as crazy as US Airfares and having to search 17 different airports to try to save some money!

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GDB45 -

If you are travelling at a very busy time and need to travel on a specific train you really don%26#39;t have any option but to pay RaiEurope%26#39;s somewhat extortionate prices for your reservations. OTOH if you have even a little flexibility it is unlikely that *every* TGV on a particular day will be completely filled. If you will be in France for a few days before you need to activate your railpass you might want to take your chances. But there is some risk that you will have to travel at an inconvenient time.

Sorry I can%26#39;t give you a more specific answer...

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OttoCal -

I think your chances of getting a much lower fare than what RailEurope is offering are VERY good. Yes, it%26#39;s a bit like buying plane tickets in the US (or pretty much anywhere else for that matter). SNCF uses exactly the same kind of yield management software the airlines use.

The good news is that bookings open three months to the day (it used to be 90 days but that seems to have chancged) ahead and the lowest PREMS fares are almost always available then. As these deeply discounted seats sell you will pay the next higher fare and so on. So really all you have to do is jump on the SNCF site *exactly* three months ahead of your Paris-Avignon date and book that leg, then do the same thing a couple of days later for your return trip. Mid-September is not that busy a travel time so you probably have even a few days wiggle room. Make sense?

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Irish, we will try that then. Thanks for the tips. There isn%26#39;t a rush for the tickets at this point, but I just like to collect all of the information ahead of time.

So 3 months to the day before Sept. 14 (for example...) would be June 14? Is that how that works? Not counting 90 days back from Sept.14?

It is crazy that all the advertising says to purchase w/ RailEurope before leaving the US or you will lose tons of money- that%26#39;s a good marketing scheme they have going!

OttoCal

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OttoCal-

Yes . . .

But when you factor in the time difference to France (6 hrs. for you?), you can actually purchase your prem fare for Sept 14th on June 13 at 6:00pm eastern (midnight in Paris).