I will be traveling from Paris to Interlaken in a couple weeks and the reservation fees are over $222 for three people! And we have passes that are good for first class.
Your website says that the fees are usually somewhere between 10-30euro.
Is this correct?
I have already paid hundreds of dollars for our passes; this seems exorbitant or wrong.
Please advise, thank you!
Best answer by Al_G
View original
+10
Yes it is right. The reservation for the TGV Lyria Paris-Switzerland cost about 70 EUR in first class. You can travel with a first class pass also in second class paying about 35 EUR.
It is one of the highest reservation fee for a day train in Europe.
If you haven’t already bought these reservations and are willing to extend your journey time it is possible to greatly reduce these costs.
Direct France - Switzerland TGV Lyria trains have these ridiculously high reservations, particularly in 1st class.
You can avoid this by travelling on TGV inside France and connecting into Switzerland on other trains. Domestic TGV are either €10 or €20 per reservation, Regional connections France - Switzerland and regular Swiss trains have no fees and no need for reservations at all.
Post up your itinerary and we can assist with an alternative route.
There are a very small number of routes with high reservation fees, you have found the very highest. In general High Speed trains from France to neighbouring countries are the biggest offenders. In nearly all cases it is possible to avoid these with some willingness to be flexible and use alternative slower connections.
You probably want to look for reservations Paris - Mulhouse (€10 or €20), then use one of the many regional trains to Basel (no reservation possible) and any train from Basel to Interlaken (no reservation needed).
To answer the question in the subject: because SNCF (French railways) see pass holders as cash cows, in particular the ones using international trains.
If you take the TGV from Paris to Bellegarde (Ain) and then switch to reservation free trains from Bellegarde to Switzerland you only pay 10 or 20 EUR for the TGV reservation in France. Please give your exact travel details and you will get more detailed advice.
1.becse freely money spending USAers have no idea about all these ALTernat. And somehow it also seems all newbees here want to ride exactly only those trains that are that hard to get and expensive to pay extra. The ignorance about how trains work and what lines there are is also much reinforced by all these planners that take away any hint of thinkforyourself.
2.SNCF=the FR state railways, an utter burocratic institution, does know how to make its sums: they do not want that those cheapskate passholders take all the seats for their valued beeznezmenny on expense accounts. Same as all airlines know very well how to ban those from beezness classy, lounges etc.
See that pass more as: IPA: If Place Available (standby for most USA) and aimed at promoting slow travel on localllines- as such it IS even possible-but in considerable longer time, to cover this whole distance on regional trains.
It is those newly built at very high taxpayers expense hi-speed lines (USA still does not have 1 single mile of that) and swish TGV trains on it that the expulsion rates apply.
In the past pre-mobile passes most EUrail tended to be sold on US-campus by some wise guy gaining commission who had done it and knew some tricks-and there was a guy named Rick Steves making some railway-howtodo-bibles-they passed on these facts. On mainstream forums like tripadvsior one is always advised to simply forget passes and book trips online-same-same as anyone now does for HTLs etc.
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