TGV ticket shenanagans

Trying to book train tickets can feel like a strange dream: objects appear in front of you; but when you reach for them they stay just out or reach.

It’s bonkers. When I looked online yesterday (on the Trainline and Rail Europe websites), I noticed three things:

At February half term, all the Paris-Bourg trains were marked as ‘Train fully booked’ despite only just having gone on sale a couple of hours earlier. That seemed odd. Yet, this morning, quite a few of these trains are now bookable.

Journeys from London to Cluses, in January, were showing as ‘No tickets available’. But if you split the search into London - Paris and (separately) Paris - Cluses, tickets are available. A clear case of algorithm failure.

For 27th March, TGVs seem not to be on sale yet to any ski destinations (as far as I can tell).

I’ll expand on both these points below, as the principles apply to other journeys too.

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Paris - Bourg at half term

On Thursday, every single train between Paris and Bourg-Saint-Maurice was showing as ‘Train fully booked’.

Since the trains had only just gone on sale, this seemed suspicious. See screenshot below.

Then yesterday I checked again – and some trains that were ‘fully booked’ yesterday, now have tickets available.

So, it seems like they weren’t actually fully booked yesterday, but the websites / ticket system just puts that ‘fully booked’ message up when it can’t yet find tickets. It’s stupid and misleading.

Well, at least some tickets are now available – see screenshot below.

Broken ticketing system

Now let’s look at a case of catching the ticket system red-handed. This is what the court case might sound like:

Judge: ‘You, the online ticket system, have been found guilty of being completely unable to display tickets for a Eurostar + TGV journey from London to Cluses, for a journey on 23rd January, even though tickets for both legs of the journey were on sale.

Algorithm: ‘Guilty, Your Honour. I was trying my best – but I’m not fit for purpose.’

Judge: ‘You realise that the traveller would naturally believe you and assume that tickets for that journey was just not possible?’

Algorithm: ‘Yes, Your Honour. But I’m an algorithm and it’s websites like Trainline and Rail Europe that need to make clear to travellers that they rely on an algorithm that is not always dependable.’

Here’s the evidence. Saturday 23rd January is not a peak travel date. And tickets had only just gone on sale for the TGV. Yet Trainline and Rail Europe websites say that tickets aren’t available.  Below are screenshots from the Trainline and Rail Europe websites.

But actually, if you break the journey into two parts, you can find tickets.

You simply do London - Paris, and then separately Paris - Cluses.

Hey presto, tickets are available, as you can see in the screenshots below.  The journey costs £153 from London to Cluses, although it then has to be booked online as two separate legs.  (You could contact an expert ticket-booking agent such as Trainseurope or Railtrail to get them to book it for you).

The fact that the tickets don’t show up when you do a normal ‘London to Cluses’ search online, is utterly ridiculous. It shows that in the year 2026, travellers still can’t reliably buy a train ticket online. Surely the rail industry should held to account over this because it is an outrage. Don’t stay up waiting for that to happen…

London to Paris

Paris to Cluses

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March 27th tickets

Although they should be bookable, it seems that tickets for TGV trains on Sat 27th March still aren’t bookable yet. The way I tested this was to try searching, for travel on that date, for Paris - Bourg-Saint-Maurice; then Paris - Oulx; then Paris - Grenoble. Nothing came up for any of them.

When nothing is available for multiple destinations, it makes it all the more likely that tickets haven’t been released yet.  

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Key takeaways

I apologise for using this cliched term, but I’ve always harboured ambitions about using it and have seized my chance.

The key takeaways are:

a) Don’t trust what you see online.
b) Really - don’t!
c) Keep checking periodically (can be annoying, I know).
d) If at first nothing shows from London to destination, break the journey into smaller legs when searching, to stop the broken algorithm fooling you.
e: sheesh kebab with chilli sauce

I hope you’ve found this email useful in some way and it can help you find the journey you desire.