A Note on Railpasses

More than a week into my trip, I'm still not sure how I feel about the railpass I bought. I have three one-month passes, one with 6 days unlimited travel, and the other two with 4 days each. The 6-day pass cost $270, while the 4-day passes cost $214 each. Since I'm under 26 years old, the cost was $186 for 3 days unlimited travel in a month, plus $28 for each additional day. The caveat to "unlimited" is that if you want to take any high-speed trains (by the way - these are the only kind that get you from Paris to Nantes and Nantes to Paris) you also have to pay a reservation fee. If you read any of the Rick Steves or other travel books, you'll see that these reservation fees should be somewhere between 3 and 5 euros each when you buy them at the train stations in France. These books also mention that some reservations on the most popular routes can sell out a few days before a trip, so make sure you book at least a couple days before you plan to travel whenever possible (wish I'd read this ahead of time).

Before I left for my trip, I bought a reservation from the Paris Airport to Nantes, as I didn't want to have to worry about anything once I got to the airport. I paid US$18, which is about 12 euros. No big deal, I figured, price will go down once I get into France. The next reservations I needed to buy were for my trip to Madrid, so once I got to Nantes, I bought a reservation from Nantes to Paris (the city train station, not the airport), and then again from the Paris airport to Nantes. The reservation from Nantes to Paris was 12 euros, while the airport to Nantes reservation was only 3 euros. The only reason I can think of that the first one cost more was that it was during a peak period, whereas the one coming home was very late at night, and therefore, probably wasn't nearly as full. In any event, I got both reservations without a problem.

Today, I went to the train station to book my reservations so that I could get to and from the airport for my trip to Munich this weekend. I told the woman at the desk exactly which trains I wanted to take (from Nantes to the airport, and from the airport to Nantes), and was surprised when she told me that all the reservations were sold out. I asked her to check another train from Nantes that would leave about 30 minutes later and would take me to the city instead of directly to the airport, and that one was available, so I booked it. I'm not crunched for time on the way there, so that wasn't a big deal.

However, trying to get from the airport to Nantes was going to be an issue. There were three trains leaving the Paris (city) train station, at 8, 9 and 10 p.m. However, the trains at 9 and 10 p.m. are sold out of reservations too, which leaves 8 p.m. as my only option. My flight is supposed to land at 6:30. Ordinarily, 1.5 hours should be plenty to get to the train station from the airport, but now I'm wary because a)my delayed flight from Madrid had me running through CDG and barely catching my train, and b) the RER schedule from the airport to the city is a bit different on the weekends, and may not run as regularly. Given that I didn't have a lot of options, I took my chances and booked the reservation on the 8:00 train for 3 euros. Worst case scenario would be that I miss the 8:00 train, and have to pay full-fare for a seat on the 9:00 train (somewhere around 60 euros-- which is about US$90).

When I got home, I was just curious to see if the ticket agent at the train station had missed something. I checked online on raileurope.com to see if I could find a reservation from the airport to Nantes, and sure enough, I could have gotten one online for US$18, plus a US$12 fee to print my ticket at the train station. I almost did it, but then decided to run back to the train station, just to see if they would look again. I had a different ticket agent this time, and while she first told me the reservations were sold out, I must have said the magic word (or looked at her in a way that made her feel sorry for me), because she went to the back office, came back in 5 minutes, and told me that if I paid 12 euros instead of 3, I could get a reservation on the train directly from the airport to Nantes. YAY!! I'm not sure if I'm able to return the original reservation I bought, but I really don't care. It's certainly worth the 3 euros to avoid the hassle of trying to get from the airport to the city late at night.

I should note that using the railpass is very easy. The first day you want to use it, you take it to the train station from which you're departing and have it validated by a ticket agent (note, it takes a good 30-45 minutes of waiting in line if your first train station is Paris airport). After that, you just fill in the date that you're traveling, then find your seat marked on the reservation, and when the train manager comes through, you show him or her the pass and the reservation, and you're good to go.

It's simple enough, but when all is said and done, I'm going to see if I actually got a good deal cost-wise, after factoring in all the reservation costs. Will let you know.