European Railroad Discussion > TGV Nice to Paris (Gar de Lyon)

Which website in the USA is most reputable and best to book & purchase tickets on the TGV?

Suggest you research on this site:

https://www.seat61.com/news.htm#.V-ILM2cVC1t

Lots and lots of travel info and ticketing.

When my wife and I went to Europe in 2012 I purchased all my tickets from Deutsche Bahn (DBAG).

https://www.bahn.com/en/view/index.shtml

They will sell you tickets for just about any route in Europe, even the one's outside of Germany. I did search Nice Ville to Paris and it came back with a list of departures. The "en" in the web address will take you to the English part of the DB site. Make sure you do this far enough in advance as tickets will be mailed to you. I guess you could download the DB app and do the E-ticket thing but I'm not sure if English is supported.

While I prefer the DB site I will add the SNCF site -

http://www.sncf.com/en/passengers

As we landed in London to start our trip I used Eurostar.com for my Eurostar tickets and nationalrail.co.uk for my UK train tickets (round trip London to York for the NRM). I do not know if DB sells Eurostar or UK rail tickets but I guess you could try.

DO NOT use Raileurope.com unless you enjoy paying too much for your tickets.

I do not recommend the Eurorail Pass unless you plan on doing a LOT of traveling by train.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/31/17 18:48 by 3rd_Raton.

I am a great fan of Trainline (formerly known as CaptainTrain)
https://www.trainline.eu/. I used them extensively on trips in 2015 and 2016

Really easy to use, no booking fees, and they have a good smart phone app.

WP17

Trainline.eu is definitely the best. They have a direct link to the computers of all European railroads they serve, and they have all the discounted seats shown. Occasionally a displayed price may no longer be available, and then you have to move on to the next best deal. It's very much like buying airline tickets, with various fare buckets. Sometimes tickets are only available 60 to 90 days ahead of the travel date.

And, you will likely not have a problem using credit cards, and most tickets can be printed out on your home printer or displayed on your phone. Sometimes the individual railroad sites will balk at accepting US credit cards, as was my recent experience with Portugal and Spain, where one transaction went through but the credit card was blocked for the next transaction until I got it unblocked. Trainline, in contrast, worked well.

I travel to Europe one to two times per year flying from Atlanta to Frankfurt and generally staying there a night or two to rest up.  Last October, my traveling companion and I had planned to take the train from Frankfurt to Berlin.  My travelng companion twisted her ankle going from the taxi to the entrance of the Frankfurt Marriott.  Fortunately, we had stayed there enough so we were known to hotel staff and they took care of her injury.  However, that killed our plans to take the train.  Drove to Berlin (with some train watching along the way) and turned the rental car in the next day.  If we had pre-purchased tickets there would have been a problem.  Coming back from Berlin to Frankfurt, we had hotel concierge take us through reservations and purchase of tickets from train from Berlin to Amsterdam.  Before leaving Amsterdam, we did the same thing with hotel concierge for tickets from Amsterdam to Frankfurt airport.  We took the same approach for a trip in April 2016 to a meeting in Luasanne, Switzerland, with a side trip to Milan after the meeting and then back through Zurich and then to Frankfurt.  Have also doen the same thing when traveling through France.

John

ThankYou for responding, ticket & trip arrangements are finalized - thanks in part - to everyone on this thread!
Best

Just reading this and checking out the Trainline.eu website , I have a question.

Why does the screen look opaque ? Is that normal ? It seems to operate, just looks strange.