The SNCF opens train reservations for the spring holidays and certain May bridges on Wednesday at 6 a.m. Do you have to set an alarm to get a cheap (too) expensive ticket?
Long weekends on May 1st and May 8th, not counting spring holidays. While SNCF ticket sales open this Wednesday for journeys until May 11, what is the strategy to adopt to be sure to travel at the best price?
Buying as soon as it opens, a bad idea?
Many people wake up at dawn on opening day, as shown each time by the figures communicated by the SNCF. Thus for the Christmas holidays, the equivalent of 9 TGV trains per minute were full on the same day, with 1.7 million tickets sold.
However, contrary to popular belief, not all low prices are posted online at that time. You guarantee a seat on the train that interests you, but not necessarily at the most attractive price.
“It’s not because you will connect at 6 a.m. that you are sure of having the lowest prices,” explains Gilles Dansart, director of Mobilettre, a rail transport specialist. The number of tickets at the lowest prices n ‘is not known. For trains on Friday evening, Saturday for 3-day weekends, there is little chance of having very low prices.
“The number of low-cost seats for trains in high demand is very low,” adds the specialist.
If you haven’t snagged the few tickets at an attractive price at 6 a.m. on the big day, it’s better to wait a little, because of dynamic pricing. This principle works as follows: “the more people are connected, the higher the ticket price”. If you wait until you arrive at the office to reserve your tickets, not only will the cheap ticket quota be exhausted, but also , prices will have already increased a lot because the algorithm will have discovered that there were a lot of people connected that morning.
-Compare prices and wait for flash sales
We will therefore have to change strategy. First compare the price you will find this Wednesday morning with the minimum and maximum prices for each TGV journey. They are now available on the SNCF website. Just simulate a reservation. For example, for a Paris-Marseille, prices are between 25 and 136 euros, or between 16 and 99 euros for an Ouigo. The site also offers a calendar of the best prices if you are flexible on the dates.
And to try to get the lower end of these prices, you can wait for the new burst of cheaper tickets during flash sales. There are some every 2 to 3 months. You just have to hope that your Easter holiday destination isn’t very popular.
What is the ideal date to book?
If you don’t know when to get your tickets, know that there is an ideal reservation date calculated by the ticket sales site Trainline. This date is exactly 11 weeks before your trip.
Let’s take the example of Paris-Brussels. Eleven weeks before the journey, the ticket price is 53.16 euros, while one week before departure, it rises to 112.36 euros. Doing it a little in advance, tomorrow for example for the week of April, allows you to save money.
Sofiane Aklouf with Pauline Ducamp
