Save up to 38% if you book early! To do this, take note of what follows.
The start of the September school year has barely passed when the French must already be thinking about organizing the end-of-year celebrations. If, like many, you live far from your loved ones and are used to getting together for Christmas, you are surely on the lookout for the opening of the annual SNCF sale. And for good reason, every year, it is at this precise moment that you can hope to find train tickets available for the holidays, and above all to have a choice in terms of dates and times. It’s simple, it’s the event not to be missed and every year, millions of travelers are there from the opening.
To give you an idea of the scale of the phenomenon, last year, on the first day of sales, up to a million connections per minute were recorded on the reservation site. And in total, no less than 4 million tickets were sold during this period. For this new edition, the sale of TGV Inoui, OUIGO and Intercités train tickets, for trips planned between December 15, 2024 and January 8, 2025, opens on Wednesday October 2 in the early morning, “around 6-7 a.m.”, the SNCF press service told us. As for OUIGO trains, the low-cost TGV version of the SNCF, the sale will take place the same day and the company already states on its site that there will be “more than 60 destinations from 16 euros”.
Concretely, families and travelers who want to save money have every interest in getting up early. According to a new study by the independent platform for selling train and bus tickets in Europe, Trainline, travelers have been able to save up to 38% on certain journeys by reserving their tickets 11 weeks in advance. In general, it is during the first three days of the opening of sales that reservations flow the most, in particular for leaving Paris. Prices then often increase from the 10th week before the vacation departure date. You now know what you need to do if you want to spend Christmas with your family without having to spend hundreds of euros.