SNCF will only accept 4 payment methods on January 1st: here’s how you can now pay.
After having tightened the rule on the transport of luggage on board its trains, the SNCF will make a new change. Since the start of the school year, users are now limited to two labeled bags per person, i.e. one cabin baggage and one hand baggage as on planes. The railway company will soon tighten the screw again next year. This time, it is a payment method that is targeted. It will no longer be usable on January 1, 2025.
This is bad news for the 5 million beneficiaries of this payment method. The railway company noted “a very clear and continuing drop in [son] usage” to pay for train tickets. By January 1, 2025, SNCF stores will gradually be adorned with posters informing travelers of the new measure.
No more paper holiday vouchers! They “will no longer be accepted to pay for your tickets at the station in 2025. Consider dematerializing them then go to SNCF Connect!” is this indicated on the official SNCF website. A new turn of the screw that the president of the National Federation of Transport User Associations (Fnaut) considers “inadmissible” since according to the National Agency for Holiday Vouchers (ANCV), nearly 45% Purchases of train tickets made with holiday vouchers are made in paper version. But the SNCF suggests that “only 2% of purchases are made with holiday vouchers”… “We do this according to customer usage”, SNCF justified itself to our colleagues at Actu.fr.
Check the bottom of your drawers carefully, and hurry to sell off your stock until December 31! Please note, however, that it is still possible to convert your holiday vouchers into a digital version, a format still accepted by the railway company. But the process is not free: you will have to pay 10 euros in exchange fees to the ANCV. And if you ever have any left after the fateful date, don’t panic, holiday vouchers can be used for many other activities than a simple train journey. Hotels, museums, restaurants, amusement parks, nearly 124,000 brands in France, recognizable by the ANCV logo displayed on their fronts, accept holiday vouchers!