You can buy your ticket via www.voyages-sncf.com and either print it yourself or pick it up just before the departure at no extra charge.
The catch: on the first page you need to chose the country were you get the tickets, but you can’t chose either Canada or US. On the last page you must enter your address and it defaults to the country selected in the first place. But if I remember correctly, at least one person reported that (s)he entered some French address, paid with his/her card and got the ticket without any trouble.

Seva
Thanks for the info. It would have been GREAT if I didn’t have a eurail pass already. I only want to book a reservation. You can’t do that on this site unfortunately! Under discount card they don’t show Rail pass as an option of course, since you are not supposed to use the site when you are booking from Canada. Otherwise it’s a fantastic site, where you can just print a ticket. Too bad you can’t just buy a reservation and print that!

If there is ANY WAY you can wait until you get to Europe to buy the reservation, do it. TGV reservations cost 4 or 5 Euros. You MIGHT find the reservation SLIGHTLY cheaper through www.railpass.com, but I doubt it will be significantly different.

When and where do you arrive in Europe and when do you need to take this train?

Seva: We’ve had at least one report of somebody buying a ticket from SNCF.com from the US or Canada on one of the trains that lets you print your own ticket.

Well, I guess the problem is that DebraB can’t wait, and she has a reason. TGV trains do sell out, there is no guarantee that there will be seats available just before train departure.

On the SNCF site you have an option to chose "2nd class Fixed Price Season Ticket" ("Abonnement Forfait 2nde&quot as your discount card. Once you do you are instructed to buy a reservation for only 1,5 EUR. If you buy one it would hold a seat for you and give you a chance to show up at the counter shortly before the train departure and ask what to do. They may say it’s OK, or ask you to pay a few EUR more, or just say that this kind of reservation is not valid. But the most you lose is 1,5 EUR.

Oldlady: I believe we are talking about the very same person who posted here about a year ago. I have no memory of him/her telling us about any problems with his travel or his CC, so most likely everything went fine.

Seva, I tried to do what you said but it still comes up as having to pay for the ticket! I can’t get it to show the amount for the reservation, the way you said. Am I doing something wrong? I tried to choose the ‘second class Fixed price season ticket’ and that’s what came up a ticket for Euros 90. I tried other things like the 1st class fixed price season ticket (as my eurail pass is 1st class anyways) but always it charges for the ticket.
oldlady- We arrive in Paris June 11th stay two days and want to take the TGV 6213 to Perpignan, where friends will pick us up at the station and take us to their villa. It has to be that date. And the website shows only three seats left. Oh well, I guess we’ll just have to take what we can get. I have actually asked my friend in Denmark to try booking the train for us. We’ll see. But thanks for the info, guys.

I followed Seva’s instructions and got an option that showed 3 euros for 2 seats. However, the second time I tried it, I only got options for full fare tickets!!!!!!! I think you should try again TOMORROW to see what happens. I’m guessing it’s something wierd with the website and how it allocates reservations and that there are more than a few available reservations on that train.

Here’s what I did…. Enter the site at www.sncf.com and click on the British flag at the bottom. Fill in your request with Perpigan 66 and choose your train from the results. After you click on the train, you get a new screen. Under item number 4 there’s a pull down menu. Select "2nd class Fixed Price Season Ticket" from that pull down.

You might try euraide: http://ourworld.comp… They charge a single $45 service fee and then regular price for the reservations. It comes out roughly the same price in your case ($45 US plus 6 euros vs. $55 US), but it’s a good deal if you need more reservations (or have several people traveling) as you only pay the service fee one.

DebraB: It seems that I’ve figured out what you problem is, cause I’ve fallen for the same trap myself
You are not travelling alone, right?
So when you go to the reservation system, get to the full option screen, for example by clicking on British flag icon, as oldlady suggested.
Then select the right number of passengers, and after that select "2nd class fixed…" (or 1st class if you want) from the drop-downs FOR EACH PASSENGER! I’ve done precisely that for your train and it worked just fine. If you select "2nd class fixed…" for one person only, the system prices one seat at 1.5 EUR and all others at the full price.
As a general remark, there must be plenty of seats available that far in advance, so if you have someone in Europe whom you could ask to buy a reservation and then mail it to you, they’d have enough time to do so. On the other hand, Saturday afternoon may not be the busiest time, but it will be busy enough. Getting reservation in advance is the right thing in your case.

Seva — I tried that and still had a problem. The first time, I filled in both pulldowns and had success. After the second time failed to pop the "reservations only" option I thought maybe I’d forgotten to deal with both travelers. Sooo, I tried it from the beginning again, making sure I dealt with 2 travelers all the way through. I still got only the full priced ticket options to choose from on DebraB’s train for June 13.

oldlady — as they say, "I can not replicate the problem." I mean I’ve tried again, and once I manage to enter all the data correctly I get 3 EUR for 2 reservation in either 1st or second class.

In my other post, I’ve failed to notice that DebraB will stay in Paris for two days, and will go to Perpignan on June 13, which is Monday. Well it’s been a while since my last TGV trip, but I don’t think Monday at 3pm is a busy time. IMHO, worst comes to worst, it should be possible to reserve two seats for this train just two days in advance. There is a SNCF counter in Roissy airport and major railway stations (Gare) are scattered all over Paris.

Hi again,

Thanks SOOOO much for all your time & trouble Seva & Oldlady!! I did indeed try again doing as Seva suggested, one ticket at a time. (just to check) and you were absolutely right!! It came up as reservation only at Euros 1.5 Fantastic. Then I went back to try and see if my daughter could get on the same coach as me. Nope she was given a different coach (2 coaches away) and seat. Just in case other people are aware, you may not get seats together. But anyways, it’s a fantastic tool to use and I’m so grateful. I will not book myself now until I hear back from my friend Bente in Denmark. She will get back to me if she can get me some reservations. Thanks alot you guys, YOUR THE BEST!

Actually, if you request both seats at once you’ll get two next to each other. Of course if you book one and then one more they’ll likely be in different cars.

It’d be rare for that TGV to be sold out, so I think that you could safely wait until you’ve arrived in France to reserve seats.
&quotlan B" might include either an earlier TGV or a TGV to Montpellier, then a regular train to Perpignan—- you might have to leave a little earlier, but don’t worry too much, because there are options!