I tried to reserve seats to France - Spain train. Unfortunately reservations for trains between France and Spain are only on paper. The system calculates that it takes more than 4 weeks to deliver tickets to Finland. So I called directly to SNCF and they could have made the reservation, but they don’t accept visa payments from Nordic countries so the reservation was impossible.
They advised to contact Interrail again. Which is a dead end cause only paper tickets and delivery is impossible.
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I tried to reserve seats to France - Spain train. Unfortunately reservations for trains between France and Spain are only on paper. The system calculates that it takes more than 4 weeks to deliver tickets to Finland. So I called directly to SNCF and they could have made the reservation, but they don’t accept visa payments from Nordic countries so the reservation was impossible.
They advised to contact Interrail again. Which is a dead end cause only paper tickets and delivery is impossible.
You still can call German Rail as they can issue reservations on the Route Paris - Barcelona aswell
but then they have to ship it to you like Interrail or you have to pick them up at a German Ticketmachine.
https://www.b-europe.com/EN/Contact/Contact-Centre
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https://www.b-europe.com/EN/Contact/Contact-Centre
Yes ofcourse they should able aswell :) Sorry iam german and prefer still German Rail :D
Even if i have currently some struggles with them.
Yes ofcourse they should able aswell :) Sorry iam german and prefer still German Rail :D
Even if i have currently some struggles with them.
Kein Problem, dass verstehe Ich. Ich habe nur gedacht dass es mit b-europe einfacher ist denn die emailen das Ticket.
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Yes ofcourse they should able aswell :) Sorry iam german and prefer still German Rail :D
Even if i have currently some struggles with them.
Kein Problem, dass verstehe Ich. Ich habe nur gedacht dass es mit b-europe einfacher ist denn die emailen das Ticket.
Stimmt.
Yes B-Europe is easier as they send a E-Mail.
Thank you with your kind and quick answers. 😌
I will try b-europe tomorrow and update the thread if and how it worked.
It may help others too.
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Thank you with your kind and quick answers. 😌
I will try b-europe tomorrow and update the thread if and how it worked.
It may help others too.
Yeah ofcourse this will helps :)
Some Community members work together to keep a post called “How to get reservations” up to date. But not many use here the search function in the community :D
I searched around here a lot and called few places. sncf international phone servioce (found in the posts) worked fine on phone and everything was great until they told that they can not accept visa payments from but only few countries in Europe. Reading your thread includes for example information: “The b-europe website mentioned above will only book domestic trains in France.” I hope this is not true and they accept visa payments from nordic countries too. But as said thank you for the kind information 🙂
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I searched around here a lot and called few places. sncf international phone servioce (found in the posts) worked fine on phone and everything was great until they told that they can not accept visa payments from but only few countries in Europe. Reading your thread includes for example information: “The b-europe website mentioned above will only book domestic trains in France.” I hope this is not true and they accept visa payments from nordic countries too. But as said thank you for the kind information 🙂
The website of B-Europe only book french domestic trips :)
Their Callcenter can book a lot more.
BUT for callcentre of NMBS= Belg rail you need the PAss cover nr-which does sadly not come automatic with mobile passea (old style paper have it on the back). And as I just noted b-rail does indeed seem to check this is a valid nr (SJ accepts any for its SE trains).
SNCF as such is NOT really allowed to EU-rulings to discriminate between where cr cds come from, certainly not for those from In the EU, but it seems (we have seen plenty of similar reports lately that maybe 1 or few agents there block it as it seems they get % commission on sales and the few cents from a REServ does not add much
BTW-as I was there with pass a few weeks ago-still heaps of snow in Tampere/Nokia- VR lets me on without any REServ needed-but this means at any stop a normal Finn may come and claim the seat as system has it REServed for her/him. Very nice trains though, these doubledeck IC.
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BUT for callcentre of NMBS= Belg rail you need the PAss cover nr-which does sadly not come automatic with mobile passea (old style paper have it on the back). And as I just noted b-rail does indeed seem to check this is a valid nr (SJ accepts any for its SE trains).
SNCF as such is NOT really allowed to EU-rulings to discriminate between where cr cds come from, certainly not for those from In the EU, but it seems (we have seen plenty of similar reports lately that maybe 1 or few agents there block it as it seems they get % commission on sales and the few cents from a REServ does not add much
BTW-as I was there with pass a few weeks ago-still heaps of snow in Tampere/Nokia- VR lets me on without any REServ needed-but this means at any stop a normal Finn may come and claim the seat as system has it REServed for her/him. Very nice trains though, these doubledeck IC.
BUT for callcentre of NMBS= Belg rail you need the PAss cover nr-which does sadly not come automatic with mobile passea (old style paper have it on the back). And as I just noted b-rail does indeed seem to check this is a valid nr (SJ accepts any for its SE trains).
SNCF as such is NOT really allowed to EU-rulings to discriminate between where cr cds come from, certainly not for those from In the EU, but it seems (we have seen plenty of similar reports lately that maybe 1 or few agents there block it as it seems they get % commission on sales and the few cents from a REServ does not add much
BTW-as I was there with pass a few weeks ago-still heaps of snow in Tampere/Nokia- VR lets me on without any REServ needed-but this means at any stop a normal Finn may come and claim the seat as system has it REServed for her/him. Very nice trains though, these doubledeck IC.
No they don't and have never done so.
Unfortunately, NMBS currently don't sell any tickets or reservations for trains to or in Spain.
As to SNCF not accepting payments with certain cards from certain countries: it strikes me as very odd and against EU legislation, but we have seen similar reports recently. I'd first try them again because it seems that some of the staff there are less helpful than others and this may just be one of the excuses they use to fob off pass holders.
I tried today again with the SNCF. I complained about the rule Finnish cards are not accepted and they let me in to the payment service. Surprise, it seems to be true. The payment service didn’t work with Finnish Visa card. So this limitation was programmed in to their system. + Now the system also blocked me to try to pay my reservation with any other means for 24 hours.
I have used this card every day without any problems. In fact this is probably the first time in my life I had any problems with Visa payments in any countries including Laos etc. you name it.
Plan B is then to book by phone via Deutsche Bahn. Their English line is reported not to have very long waiting times. You can then pick up the reservation at any DB ticket machine or have it sent via the post for €5.90.
Thanks for all the help and answers. Deutsche Bahn seems to be only option for many European countries that are supporting only the official Visa standard.
if you have a normal Visa card capable of only standard Visa-payments, the SNCF service will fail in the end. It would be possible to use their internet service, if you don’t have Interrail ticket. Their internet service supports standard Visa cards, but then again, it does not support interrail.
After having a lengthy discussions with their service, I got very clear impression they don’t want to give service to Interrail customers. I got nice and understanding help until I said that there was no option to use their internet service cause I had the Interrail ticket. Then they said I should just pay for the full ticket price in their internet service and in practice the discussion ended there.
But yes if you have Interrail ticket the buying is possible in SNCF international service number. But.. The problem is that after you have done the reservation the paying is almost impossible. It is cause in the telephone service the paying is handled with an old system which does not fully support standard Visa. It supports only Visa with old French e-CB payments (I guess related to “medieval” French blue card somehow). Most of the banks don’t have any processes to support that system, well maybe in some countries like Belgium etc. it is still possible. The other option would be to dig up an American Express card from somewhere cause that would work in the telephone payment system. I borrowed a friends card and it worked and I got my reservation paid.
Just for the note: After having a success in reserving the seats in SNCF telephone service, I tried also to go back to the internet service just to open up the reservation and pay it there. Opening up the reservation succeeded, but it didn’t give option to pay it as the system saw the reservation coming from outside of the SNCF internet service.
You may wonder, why I didn’t go to DB? Cause my booking in the SNCF service was the last reservation in that train for interrail travellers. As mentioned here they have only limited amount of seat tickets that can be reserved for Interrail customers. They also said that to me.
So all in all.. I wonder how much the SNCF gets money from the Interrail system as they clearly don’t want to give any service and deliberately tries to convince people to buy full train tickets even they have acquired usually quite costly interrail tickets. For example we had one traveller who had only 4 days in a month. This single trip was one of the most important and lengthiest travel days. If that would have been forced to a full price ticket the whole interrail ticket would have become quite useless.
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