Hi Kathrine, the only way to book France to Italy online for Interrail is the Interrail/Eurail booking website (under “BOOK RESERVATIONS” on www.interrail.eu). You need to login for this and enter all information of the travellers and the corresponding passes. A bit of hard work, but this is the only way possible for France to Italy TGVs. Is it what you have done? Btw I have just checked for your date, it looks like there is availability. It’s a Wednesday, don’t worry, I feel there is enough availability. In my opinion, here the problem is rather the (high) price of the reservation (33 EUR 2nd, 47 EUR 1st). But there is no way to avoid it.

If you don’t make it online, I suggest you go to a train station near you. Good luck !

You can also call SNCF. Press #85 for English, no booking fee (Interrail charges 2€ per person and seat), reservations are sent via e-mail.

@cheval_sur_interrail : thank you for your response. This is exactly what I have tried doing online at the interrail.eu site and it keeps showing “prices not available” og just making an error, when I get through the steps and is about to pay. I tried my local train stations as well, but they cannot help with bookings in France.

I guess I will have to call them as @rvdborgt suggests. Because I also feel that there should be room on. wednesday :-)

Thank you @rvdborgt! I will try this.

OK I see. It may be that your group is too big for the number of seats available at the same price level. I tried to book for 1 person and it seemed to work. Though: Even if it works by splitting, you may end up not sitting together. Then indeed, call SNCF looks the best option. However, I tried this in the past, and they would accept only French credit cards. But I had called the service in French. By dialing English is apparently the solution. Pls tell us if it worked out !

I had the same experience last year in August. Apparently, they didn't think people from other countries would speak French. Although… they only say in quite rapid French that you have to press #85 for English...

@cheval_sur_interrail 

So just following up on this.

Apparently, I can book the reservations online for three out of the four family members, but the one - travelling on a youth interrail pass (he’s 13), I cannot book 

So I tried calling the number - and thank you for the tip on pressing #85 as I did not understand a word they said when calling the number. I reached an english speaking person, which was able to help med with booking the tickets. However, none of my cards are working, when I try to pay - and they cannot tell me, which kind of card would work. Every time, I try a card that isn’t working, the booking is locked for 2 hours and I have to call back the next day to try again.

So…. I have one card left to try, and hopefully that will work. Otherwise, I guess, we will have to leave our teenage son in Paris :-D

This has been no problem with any other destinations, and everything in contact with the French has been very troublesome, so really starting to be a bit annoyed with France at the moment ;-)

 

Hi Kathrine, many thanks for the update. So painful with these credit cards with SNCF... Another idea: Try to book the teenager as an adult (by putting an earlier birth year), which means you book 4 adults together. Doesnt play any role as there is anyway no price reduction for young people for this reservation.

Just a final update on this one:

So after three days and three trys with SNCF i did not manage to pay for my reservations with any of my cards.
 

I also tried changing my sons birthday to both younger and older on the eurail site to book there and nothing worked.

I ended up booking two tickets for myself and my daughter and then two tickets for my husband and same daughter - thinking then we at least had four seat reservations. In Denmark there is no need for names on only seat reservations, so we thought this would probably be fine and accepted that we had to sit separately on this ride.

Just to make sure - and to ask if they could maybe seat us together and change the name - I called SNCF up again, but they could not help me at all since I booked through eurail (also in my pwn country this would never have been a problem) and said that it was a problem that I had two bookings in the same name, and that if the train conducter was not happy with it, he could ask us tp pay the full price for the ticket for my son.
 

So there you go - France obviously just wants to keep my son in Paris - and I am pretty fed up with the difficulty of the whole thing :-)

Hi Kathrine, many thanks for your reply. Sad to see the poor SNCF service on the phone, especially the story with the same names. Is it a threat? Anyway, I would not bother, not say anything and just go. I bet the conductor won’t say anything 99% probability… You have paid after all !

For other readers who may have the same issue with France - Italy reservations: you can try to call the contact center of SBB (Swiss Railways): +41 848 44 66 88. They have access to almost all SNCF offers and can issue electronic tickets. And they accept all major credit cards without hassle ;-)

Additionally, if you prefer to pay in euros, you can also book TGVs (except for now the one to Barcelona) via NS. Reservations are also sent via e-mail.