On Jan 10, 6:34*pm, Paul Corfield wrote:

On Tue, 10 Jan 2012 09:18:25 -0800 (PST), wrote:
It's my birthday soon and because I have the time available next week
I decided that I'd treat myself to a day trip to continental Europe on
Wednesday 18th - I would plan on a basis of purely seeing *how far I
could travel in a day before having to turn back towards home. London
- Marseille and return is just achievable within a day. Considering
that I've never been south of Paris on a TGV, a jaunt across LGV-SE
and LGV-Med all the way to Marseille would be new ground.

I logged on to the Eurostar website to see what fares are available.
£58 each way. Considering I'm booking just a week ahead that is a
respectable deal. I'll have it.

(N.B I'm under 25 so entitled to youth fares)
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/z392/m82d1/1w.jpg

£58 outward on 05:40 London - Paris then 10:19 Paris - Marseille.
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/z392/m82d1/2w.jpg

£58 return on 14:14 Marseille - Lille Europe then on 20:30 Lille
Europe - London.
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/z392/m82d1/3w.jpg

Therefore the price should be £116 but at the payment page it's now
randomly inflated to £252 for no apparent reason! WTF!? :-?:-?:-?
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/z392/m82d1/5w.jpg

I telephoned Eurostar and spoke to a very nice lady who tried to book
my itinerary over the phone, once again the grand total was £252
despite being quoted £58 each way. The booking clerk was also none the
wiser as to why two £58 tickets have inflated from £116 to
£252... *:roll:

Plan B, I'll try Rail Europe. No tickets despite I've just found them
on Eurostar. :roll:
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/z392/m82d1/6w.jpg

Plan C, I'll try Voyages SNCF. All goes well until the booking page
when I am introduced to an “erreur technique“.
http://i1187.photobucket.com/albums/z392/m82d1/7w.jpg

Looks like I won't be going to Marseille, then.

As the saying goes, we can put man on the moon... :roll:

Your experience pretty much mirrors mine when trying to get any sense
from any booking system for european rail tickets.

Why a simple system that cannot be put in place I don't know.

I've offered a guessplanation in my other post as to what may have
happened in the OP's case - but I've found that searching for and
buying Eurostar+TGV/Teoz through fares to be a fairly painless
experience. As per SNCF's domestic booking window, tickets go on sale
90 days before travel (and that's the date of return travel if it's a
return journey) and they seem to stick to this, apart from in the lead
up to the December timetable change when the booking horizon gets
compressed (as seems to be the case with most/all Euro railways).

Looking further afield and yes, it does start to get messy.