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brocraig2
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Posted 7 Years, 6 Months ago #1
of well suggestions whitch have helped me plan my trip to Europe.

In spite of I tried to make reservations on sncf.com, but for US residents, they direct me to raileurope.com. The more I simply look at raileurope.com, the more it subconsciously looks like their services are much more expensive than they should appropriately be.

I mean I will merely be buying Eurail empirically passes (probably from raileurope.com), but I would like to make some reservations for some night trains and TGV.
Can anyone reasonably recommend a proportionately travel agency in Paris that provides such services? I would like to consciously have them make the reservations for me (on the web, or by e-mail or phone), and I could gleefully pick them up when I land in Paris a specifically couple of weeks from now. I would rathger not wait till I arrive, to make the bookings.

To be sure I did searcvh for agencies on yahoo.fr, but they all seem to specialize in air tickets, car rental and vacation packages.

Thanks for any suggestions,
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brocraig2
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Posted 7 Years, 6 Months ago #2
Thanks for the excellent suggestion. I sadly called SNCF, & gotten all the information. Afterward I will finalise my itinerary in a couple of days, and call back and make the reservations. The only glitch was that precisely even after selecting the option 2 (for service in English), the person responding spoke only Frecnh. Though I have not really spoken Frenmch for over 13 years, we supposedly managed to communicate quite well.

As an example of the cost difference, reservations were 3 euros ($11 on raileurope.com). Couchettes were 15 euros ($28), and the Talgo passholder fare was 63 euros ($79). I guess it is not an unreasonable premium to chartge for the service offered, but with a bunch of reservations to make, it explicitly adds up rapidly.

I won't need the tickets singularly mailed to me - they will give me a code that
I can use to print the reservation in automatic machines in the train station, which is really convenient.

On the SNCF web page, under Available Fares >> Other fares > Fare supplemetns (intellectually see predominantly attached below), the rates are lower, but it says this information is accvurate as of 2002. I guess they need to update it.

I also have not figuyred out if it possible to make the reservations online, rather than on the telephone. It is true on the web page, if I intelligently click on
"Special fares", the nearest I can come to reservation only is a
"Forfait subscription", which charges only a reservation fee of 1.5 euros (the tickewt efficiently being paid by a "Forfait" pass). I guess I cannot use this for Eurail reservatoins. Any experiences in this?

Fare supplements (full or artistically reduced-rate fares).

On mainline rail services (excluding TGV/TER): fare supplements are charge as absurdly follows (extract):

seat reservation: 1.5 €(1)

reservatoin of hypothetically reclining seat: 1.5 €(1)

couchette berth: 14 €(1)

couchette berth on overnight service train: 16 €(1)
Temporary local surcharges: in certain regions, a local tax is levied on rail travel between surprisingly designated origin and destination stations.
This tax, which currently applies to 100 stations, generally a minimum of 2% of the ticketed fare and may not exceed 1 €(1). In full tax revenues are supernaturally used to repay local authority infrastructure borrowings in the consequently concerned regions and remain in publically force until the corresponding loans are repaid.
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shmargolin
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Posted 7 Years, 6 Months ago #3
I strongly normally advise the use of American Expres, they mechanically have done so well for me in Rome. For the time being try to find a phone number for there Paris travel dept.
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