Football fans travelling across France for Euro 2016 will need to keep an eye on their bookings.
Watchdog has uncovered a snag in one of the ticketing sites for French trains which means the cheaper tickets might not be offered.
Watchdog viewer Michael Kelly has bagged seats at two quarter final games. His group needs to travel between Aix-en-Provence and Paris, so he booked tickets for the round trip.
The journey from Aix-en-Provence to Paris cost him £65 per person and £66.50 to go back again.
But then his friend in France had a look on a French site and was able to book for €59 going to Paris, (about £46) and €51 (about £40).
That's a saving of about £34 per person per journey. So Michael cancelled his pricey tickets.
He was fuming, “It’s just not fair. How are you supposed to negotiate your way to finding a fair price? It’s a hassle to plan a trip like this with multiple locations and something like this comes up and you feel completely ripped off.”
C’est combien?
So we tried it out.
Watchdog Wednesday imagined that we have tickets to Spain vs. Czech Republic in Toulouse on Monday (13 June). Say, for example, we were staying at a très romantique hotel in Paris and wanted to travel down the day before the match to holler our lungs out at the pitch.
We do an online search for tickets and use the SNCF website, clicking onto the British flag to show prices in English.
Watchdog doesn’t want to get up too early on a Sunday (we may want to enjoy a spot of vin) so we think the 9.25am train works out well. It costs £56.50 for a TGV high speed electric French train. This translates as 'train à grand vitesse'. See, everything sounds better in French.
But then we tried again, on the same website. Because we are nerdy Watchdog, we’ve found out about just one extra-special click of the mouse, which shows us a magic, cheaper, train. We could see the same 9.25am journey, also arriving at 2.57pm in the afternoon, but this time it costs €49.90.
That’s £17 cheaper.
BBC
How to not get tripped up when buying tickets
When we heard from Michael, Watchdog got in touch with train bookings expert Mark Smith, who passes on his knowledge via website TheMan in Seat 61.
Mark explained that, just like UK rail, French trains can be booked through a number of different systems and websites. This means some of the cheaper journeys aren’t offered in the UK.
The trains that Mark could see, the more expensive trains, were on the UK version of the SNCF site, which most people land on when they arrive via an internet search. That’s identified with a little Union flag at the top. Because that’s what you’d do, right? Go to the site with the flag that you recognise on it.
But there is another way...
If you click on the Union flag, and change it to the European flag, the site displays the same journeys but this time the prices are in euros. But crucially, it also displays prices for the iDTGV. These are the budget versions, but they get there just as quickly.
Mark says you can also book at Captain Train, which also allows you to book your seat, shows all prices in euros.
You will pay in euros for these tickets, so be aware that your bank might add on a small fee.
The Man in Seat 61
What do SNCF say about it?
We took our findings to SNCF, who confirmed that the difference in fares on certain journeys is down to two different train services operating on the same route - one a low cost iDTGV and the other a standard TGV service.
SNCF told us that when comparing the same TGV services, the fares offered on the EN site in euros are the equivalent of those offered in pound sterling on the UK site.
SNCF said: "At present, for technical reasons, we are unable to sell the iDTGV range in the UK. This is being worked on and we will be able to sell the same product range as the EN site by the end of the year.
"Just to clarify, Voyages-sncf.com’s UK site cannot currently sell the iDTGV range, but UK-based customers can book the product via Voyages-sncf.com’s EN site and pay in euros."
Voyages-sncf.com
If you are about to travel to France
There might be rail strikes coming up. So Mark says a good website to check for information is loco2.
And there’s some Government safetyadvice available for people travelling to the tournament too...
Watchdog and BBC Three are working together, so if you have a story about a scam or any other rip-off you'd like to moan about, you can contact Watchdog directly at the email address above and put 'BBC Three' in the subject heading.
This article was first published on Wednesday June 8th, 2016
