gabris
Traveller
1 comments
Posted 16 years ago
Hullo everyone,
I've just decided to share my recent experiences with the SNCF booking system for several reasons
i. VERY angry
ii. I want fellow interrailers to be prepared
It so happenned that today 25th April I went to the station with my inter-rail and tried to buy reservation to go up to Paris from the south in a week's time 2nd of May. Now, it turned out that there was no way for me to go and take TGVs or long-distance trains EITHER from Toulouse, Marseille or Montpellier because the day will be busy and although there are several dozens of trains still with free seats on the web, the SNCF says that the inter-rail quota has been reached. No one could tell me what the precise qouta is.
This means that even if you have a valid inter-rail ticket it might prove completely useless when tains are busy, since the SNCF advised me to buy full price tickets if I really wanted to travel the day I chose (e.g.: Marseille-Paris 100EUR).
I do not remember having read anything about it on the website.
Does anyone know whether the system has changed recently?
It seemed very unlikely that not a single train should be available for inter rail holders so I decided to enquire at another station which confirmed the bad news.
Do you think other countries put also quotas on available inter rail seats as well?
Cheers,
g.
[b]UPDATE:[/b]
[b]Connections free of extra reservation fees[/b]:
[ux]https://rail.cc/en/search-interrail-route[/u]
[b]Purchase your TGV reservation online[/b]:
[ux]https://rail.shop/sncf/reservation[/ux]
[b]Information TGV-reservations[/b]:
[u]https://rail.cc/en/interrail-train-reservation/tgv-sncf/42[/u]
[b]Update: Nov 2016[/b]
Peter
Traveller
9332 comments
I already heard from a lot of InterRail travelers that there are on some days big problems to get a seat in a TGV.
Sad news, as InterRail is not a cheap ticket - it is an expensive rail pass.
So the problem of the quotas seems to exist especially in France. Even if there are still free seats left in the TGV trains, you won't get them as Rail Pass traveler.
As an example in Germany: the high-speed-trains called ICE are free of supplements and reservations.
I have no information about these quotas in France. Maybe SNCF in France will solve this problem. As it is in deed a big problem for Rail Pass travelers.
gabris
Traveller
1 comments
Thanks for the reply and you are doing a great job helping all these people.
I still feel very much like contacting the group responsible for the inter rail sales because I do not think it was made clear for customers that the inter rail offer has been downgraded in France.
Indeed, the new (from october 2007) booking system of the sncf follows practices of the yield management, that is, availability of various sorts of discounted tickets is not subject to actual seats available but to predictions of traffic
This means more or less that for instance for the easter holidays people having various discount cards (like the bahn card 25 /50 in germany) had absolutely no chance finding free seats no matter how early they tried to book, see, because of the predictions... There was even an article about the isssue in le monde yesterday
Anyway, what seems to me unacceptable is that
- basically, inter rail now is classified as a bahn card
- no way to buy just reservation on sncf site
- it was not made clear that basically inter rail now is an off peak offer
- contrary to what is usually told about alternative routes, there remains very few long-distance trains without compulsory reservation, since the corail téoz system running between bordeaux-marseille-nice or even clermont-ferrand- paris belongs to the same contingent as tgv and is not available at peak periods either (checked personally).
Do you have any idea whom to contact if I want a clear answer about the REAL validity of the inter rail offer? Is there an ultimate authority responsibe for the inter rail or it's just the participating railways?
And yes, I bet there will be angry and exhausted inter-railers waiting desperately for off-peak periods at stations throughout france this summer, around the 14th of July and before / after the holiday switches...
gabor
admin
Traveller
203 comments
Thanks for that exposition Gabris. A lot of good info and advice there and some issues that definitely need to be addressed in order that we have a fair service Europewide. I travel in France almost every year and will be there for some of July.
Please come back with an address if you find someone we can all make protests to regarding this matter. We'll have more influence if we complain en masse.
Thanks again.
iaink
Peter
Traveller
9332 comments
It is sad that the InterRail pass is getting more and more restricted by all these special rules, by all these special trains, all these super-fast-trains.
I remember the early 1990s when it was much nicer to travel by InterRail.
But by the way: InterRail is for me still the best rail ticket ! :)