Well, I guess I gave up too soon! I wish there was more clarity in all that - I had read that pass fares sold out so I assumed that’s what we were facing. Should have known the rep wasn’t necessarily the end answer - I’ve certainly run into that in other places! I was nervous we’d lose out all together. I’m not really equipped to argue that was in French though, and she definitely told me that was the price with Eurailpass.Hopefully the reservations we got here were for couchettes. Of course there’s no one I can speak with to confirm that!
Well I hope that’s what is was. It was a Friday, so I figured the pass fares were gone, as the French lady was going to sell it to me for 600 euros, which I am pretty sure is full fare for 4. That was the price on sncf online. She was quoting Eurail. At that point I did it online since I was nervous about entering payment and pass info in French correctly - from what you’ve told me, though, it wouldn’t have worked anyway as I don’t have a French card.On this site I got the day before (August 10) for around $100 for the 4. Using these passes is a lot more complicated than it was two decades ago!
We couldn’t get SNCF in English, tried three times with two different phones. I spoke to the French lady (I actually understand fine but speak really poorly) but she ended up saying I could just buy online as she didn’t have pass fares so we went in circles. I don’t know why the #85 didn’t work. When you hit it, you just got disconnected. Same when I spoke to an operator and asked to be transferred to the English line. Maybe because it was Sunday? I ended up just buying them here, for a different date, because from talking with SNCF in French it seemed they were running out of pass fares. It doesn’t say couchette but it must be. We couldn’t get the espace privatif but that will just have to part of the adventure. I may try again on a weekday to see if I can get another leg through them,.But it would have to be the English, I don’t have a French credit card…
Hellop, I don’t know if you are still watching this conversation or not but thought I’d try because you were so very helpful!We have eurail passes. We have run into trouble on the booking of couchette Paris-Carcassonne with eurail. The SNCF phone line cuts out when you press #85 for English (call disconnects, tried 3 times on different phones). I tried using my French it was really difficult! So I tried on this site, it lets me put the 4 reservations in my cart, for about 125 euro - but it does not specify that these are couchettes. We do not want to do this if it’s the regular seats which I see the train has. Would you agree that the reservations this site is offering me would be just the seats? That price is what you estimated the couchettes would be but I wonder why no information is specified.
Thanks, again, for being so very helpful! One last question: Any opinion on 1st v. 2nd class? We aren’t fancy, and I was student when I did before (so all 2nd), so I’m inclined to go with 2nd, but do you think that will complicate the reservation issue or make it harder to get places together?
Wow, thank you. That’s really helpful. I think I’m most worried that the passes will be complicated to use.If we get the passes, do we get the reservation only on the Eurostar/Scnf/Trenitalia websites? I had heard that about the reservations being limited so that made me nervous as well. (You mention calling SNCF which would be even better - I couldn’t find a number to call Eurail.) I was pricing on SNCF without passes (obviously) and I was able to get the couchette + “espace privatif” on the Intercite Nuit (so we could be alone with the 4 of us). Hopefully we could do something similar with the pass. Our dates set (as long as we can get these reservations!) as to lodging and flights.
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