France Train Strikes: How to know if you’re affected and how to change tickets
Today is being called “Black Tuesday” here in France, the first day of three months of scheduled train strikes. The strikes, or “grèves”, have already caused chaotic scenes in train stations around the country, as commuters, intercity travelers and tourists grapple with how to get to their destinations.
The train strikes, however, have at least been organized with some transparency for travelers: Two days of strikes (during which SNCF train service is reduced by about 80%) are followed by three days of normal service. This “on again off again” strike schedule allows travelers the opportunity to avoid the strike days when booking, and even re-book their train tickets in advance without penalties.
I’m currently spending the week in Sète, a charming canal-lined city that hugs the Mediterranean in southwestern France. I had planned to travel with my family to Paris by TGV this Sunday, but because of the strikes, re-booked to leave on Saturday instead. (Sunday is a scheduled “strike day”, while Saturday is in the clear.) Fortunately, we hadn’t yet booked our hotel and had some flexibility with our schedule!
So what should you do if you’re wondering how your upcoming trip to France will be impacted by the rail strikes? Read on…
French train strike calendar
This calendar, from the SNCF website, illustrates the strike days in red. Note that the strike is scheduled to run from April 3 through June 28, 2018 (although it may be called off at any time).
If your travel days fall outside these scheduled strike days, you’re fine and don’t need to change your tickets. (You should, however, plan for a full train).
Travelers wait to change their tickets at the Gare de Sète.
What to do if you booked a train on a strike day
If you have already purchased SNCF train tickets on a day marked as a “strike day”, you should change your ticket as soon as possible to a non-strike day, when trains will be running normally. Note that trains on non-strike days are filling up quickly, so you’re encouraged to re-book as soon as possible.
As we mention in more detail below, all train tickets for April travel are currently fully changeable at no cost. However, the SNCF will not automatically change all tickets for May and June travel, and changing tickets may incur extra charges if the fare has increased since you made the original booking. This is because the strike may be called off at any time.
However, that’s hardly reassuring for travelers to France who need to know their itinerary in advance, especially as hotel reservations will need to be made ahead of time. Therefore, we would advise all travelers with tickets that fall on strike days to change them, if possible, to avoid any potential travel disruption. You don’t want to be stuck in the train station wondering where to go for the night.
How to re-book train tickets
If you’re already in France, you can re-book by heading into any train station. Ticketing machines are able to re-book tickets, but you may also head to a ticket counter to re-book with a ticketing agent.
You can also change your ticket online, by heading to the official France national rail service website, oui.sncf. From the railway’s website:
TGV around France and Europe and INTERCITÉS
You can exchange your tickets or request a refund at no extra cost, including non-exchangeable / non-refundable rates.
More info on our OUI.sncf website or app:
- See more on « my bookings » on the website or « my journeys » on the app.
- Enter your booking reference and the name used for the order.
- Proceed to the exchange or cancellation of your ticket
For more information about Eurostar, Lyria, Thalys, and other TGV trains, see this page on the Oui.sncf website.
Note that the above policy refers to train tickets for April. Changing tickets for May or June travel dates may incur an extra charge if the ticket price has increased since the time of booking.
A few more hiccups…
If you have built flexibility into your schedule and have refundable (or changeable) hotel reservations, you should be able to avoid too many travel disruptions by simply bumping train travel dates to non-strike days. That’s the best case scenario.
However, travel issues will arise for the rest of us. For example:
• The SNCF’s website is currently allowing travelers to book trains on strike days without warning them that the trains will likely be cancelled. For example, a strike day is scheduled for June 13, yet a search for Paris-Avignon TGV trips brings up a long list of trains that are currently bookable — but scheduled to be cancelled.
• If you scored a cheap seat on the TGV for May or June and are now forced to change it to avoid a strike day, you’ll likely have to pay the fare difference. So much for early bird savings!
• If you’re forced to rework your travel itinerary because of the strikes but have non-refundable hotel rates, you’ll likely still have to pay for those nights.
• You might consider ditching the train altogether and opting for a rental car instead. That could work, but we forewarned that rental prices will increase because of the strikes, as will traffic. (This morning, for example, traffic into Paris was backed up for four hours…)
Stay up to date
For the latest on the rail strikes, check out this page on Oui.sncf, the official website of the SNCF. Eurostar customers can find more information specific to Eurostar service here.
Share your experience
Have you been impacted by the rail strike or do you have advice for those who might be impacted? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
About the author
I’ll be in Paris June 17 to fly out of CDG airport on the 19th. Is the train strike likely to cause me issues or are there busses to CDG from around Paris?
Hi Peggy,
The train strike should not affect travel in and out of the Paris airports. But always check ahead on the official site for Paris airports — http://www.parisaeroport.fr/en/homepage. Bon voyage!
what about Eurostar on the 27 June. Very very upsetting when people have plans made and every day they are on trains or planes wonderful Air France and France Rail is on strike. Losing alot of business I know and neither side cares.
Will this strike affect Eurostar? if so I will happily book British Air from Paris to Londond of would the parties involved like to wait until the day before to decide.? Never been a fan of unions- remember they began to help the sweat shops- these companies are hardly sweat shops. If they dont like their jobs let them get another. And by the way- I am a travel consultant with major company and book alot to France.
I made my bookings before the strike was announced, and with them my hotel bookings also. So imagine my annoyance when i discovered that both days of travel Paris 》Turin and then Turin 》 Paris fell on strike days and the discovery a day before my travel that my train was cancelled.
So i took myself off to Gare Montparnasse to exchange the first trip- at that stage it was the only one i knew had been cancelled.
They exchanged it at no cost, all i had to do was take an early train from Paris to Basel then onto Milan, and finally a 5 minute dash for a train to Turin. HALLELUJAH i made it. Only 9 1/2hrs..
4 days into my weeks holiday in Italy i get a message that my train back to paris is cancelled. This is where the fun begins. I tried to call them to exchange my ticket numerous times. My french is appalling so first i tried to speak English… she hung up on me.
The next lady told me it was impossible, and that they could only refund the cost because i was out of france so it was impossible for me to pick up my new ticket and i had the borne libre service- when i told her that really wasnt good enough as it would leave me hundreds of euros out of pocket for a 29€ ticket she hung up on me.
The third lady i finally managed to speak to just told me to take the 12.23 train from Milan to Geneva and change there for Paris.
So here i am sitting in Milano Centrale nervously expecting to either get kicked off, or have lots of explaining to do to the Swiss officials…
Barcelona to Avignon 20 April 2018 not a strike day. I saw the day before that our 3 trains were cancelled and went to BCN SANTS to get information. The clerk , Marco, swore that our trains were running on Friday. There was no chance to cancel or upsell to the later TGV run by Renfe because our ticket was endorsed on SNCF, sold by raileurope who never answered my urgent email.
Despite this we went to the station a half hour early and our first ticket got us onto the platform 5.. it was BCN toGirona.
Sitting on platform 6 was a French TGV TO PARIS. I spoke to the conductor who said he could not authorize anything. Only the train manager could do that. He would arrive minutes before the departure.
Happily I speak French. The conductor said “Get on the train and wait for him there”. We never saw the conductor or any official from there to Nîmes. The train filled more than capacity in Girona so we shared seats with a Canadian family and took turns standing. By the time we disembarked there were hundreds of extras in the aisles and on the stairs.
In Nîmes our ongoing connx was cancelled and we waited 2 hrs for the next train. Again, no officials, train crowded.
This was a none strike day.
Lesson: Renfe in Spain is very poor on customer service, has very poor attitude. The lines for next day tickets (take a number, sitand wait) was 100 people long..count on over an hour wait. The same day line was about ten people long (about 10:30am)
My advice:if you can get onto the platform just get on the train you want. This happened to me once between CDG and Avignon…gobs of riders, no ticket takers.