Christmas TGV and other train tickets now on sale in France

Train tickets covering the Christmas period are available to purchase in France from this morning (October 4), with hundreds of thousands of people already rushing to book them.

Tickets for both forms of TGV services - InOui and its low-cost Ouigo counterpart - as well as certain Intercités routes are now on sale.

The tickets are for the period between December 10 and January 9 – covering up to the end of the Christmas school holidays – although for certain Ouigo routes tickets can be purchased as late as July 5, 2024.

Tickets are being sold via the usual system with the cheapest tickets available to those who purchase first and tickets becoming more expensive when fewer are left.

You can book tickets through the official SNCF website.

The rush of people trying to buy tickets this morning caused the SNCF’s website to crash.

A number of users on X (formerly Twitter) complained, saying the crash was a recurrence for Christmas ticket sales.

When The Connexion tried to connect to the website around 08:30, it was down, however by 09:30 it was available again.

Book now to avoid rush

If you are certain of the dates you will be travelling, it is recommended to book as soon as possible, because once a certain percentage of seats on a train are booked, the remaining tickets climb in price.

It is also recommended to book early if you are travelling as a group so as to increase the chance you can buy tickets next to each other.

Currently, tickets for all train routes running over the month-long period are available.

Extra trains could be added to schedules at a later date, although this is not guaranteed

Last year, 100,000 people per minute loaded up the SNCF website within the first two hours of Christmas tickets becoming available, with 30 tickets being sold per second.

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