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Eurostar, TGV seating for adults + under-4s

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BahrainLad

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Planning a trip down to the southwest of France towards the end of July, when hopefully travel restrictions will be eased a bit more.

Route is London - Paris - Bordeaux - Ste Foy Le Grande.

Passengers are myself, my daughter (3) and my brother. So my daughter doesn't need a ticket.

Seems I can book London - Bordeaux on Eurostar.com, or London - SFLG all the way through on RailEurope. I like to collect Eurostar points, so can I do that on either platform? (I wonder if I would get points for the full spend if I booked on E*, but only the E* sector spend on RE.). What about Trainline? I suppose I may want to book Standard Premier + TGV First Class and then 2nd class on the TER, but RE won't let you do this on one ticket.

How do I select seats? I presume if I book on Eurostar.com, I would be able to select seats for the Eurostar legs on their website? I presume any booking for the TGV will just give me something random (but RE allows upper/lower/duo/solo I think?)

For my daughter, I think I can get a €9 seat reservation on the same TGV from the InOui website so she could have a seat without a ticket, but how do you get this adjacent to wherever Eurostar/RE have dumped you. Is it feasible/allowed to book 2 x €9 reservations at the same transaction just to get two seats together? Or even 3, if my brother joins us (he may be on a separate itinerary for either the outbound/return anyway)? Am I likely to get a telling off for doing this and not sitting in the seat on my ticket?

Any thoughts?
 
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Peter Kelford

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Seems I can book London - Bordeaux on Eurostar.com, or London - SFLG all the way through on RailEurope. I like to collect Eurostar points, so can I do that on either platform? (I wonder if I would get points for the full spend if I booked on E*, but only the E* sector spend on RE.). What about Trainline? I suppose I may want to book Standard Premier + TGV First Class and then 2nd class on the TER, but RE won't let you do this on one ticket.
Try Oui.SNCF you can book London - SFLG provided the two governments let you.
 

blackfive460

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I'm not sure what Eurostar's policy is for young children occupying seats or what SNCF's current policy is but from the experience of a family friend a few years ago who did the same as you are proposing for the TGV; just getting a seat reservation for the child, he found that SNCF expect children without a ticket to sit on the parents lap. He was told that, if they occupy a seat then they are expected to have a ticket for the journey and was made to purchase a full price ticket on the train so it would be worth checking what the rules are. An advance purchase child ticket may well prove a safer bet!
 

BahrainLad

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3 Aug 2015
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I'm not sure what Eurostar's policy is for young children occupying seats or what SNCF's current policy is but from the experience of a family friend a few years ago who did the same as you are proposing for the TGV; just getting a seat reservation for the child, he found that SNCF expect children without a ticket to sit on the parents lap. He was told that, if they occupy a seat then they are expected to have a ticket for the journey and was made to purchase a full price ticket on the train so it would be worth checking what the rules are. An advance purchase child ticket may well prove a safer bet!

I think you must need to be careful which kind of reservation you get. I assume from this

On French domestic TGV & Intercité trains you can buy a special ticket called a Forfait Bambin for a fixed €9 per journey which gives your infant their own reserved seat, well worth it on a long trip. You'll automatically get a forfait Bambin if you buy your tickets at www.trainline.eu or en.oui.sncf and add your infant as a passenger with their correct date of birth/age. Forfait Bambin is not sold at any of the Rail Europe websites.

it can't just be any seat reservation, it needs to be a specific "Forfait Bambin." Certainly the InOui website will price up €9 in either standard or first class on any train without an issue.
 

blackfive460

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Joined
23 Jun 2010
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I think you must need to be careful which kind of reservation you get. I assume from this

On French domestic TGV & Intercité trains you can buy a special ticket called a Forfait Bambin for a fixed €9 per journey which gives your infant their own reserved seat, well worth it on a long trip. You'll automatically get a forfait Bambin if you buy your tickets at www.trainline.eu or en.oui.sncf and add your infant as a passenger with their correct date of birth/age. Forfait Bambin is not sold at any of the Rail Europe websites.

it can't just be any seat reservation, it needs to be a specific "Forfait Bambin." Certainly the InOui website will price up €9 in either standard or first class on any train without an issue.

Good to have up to date information!
What I posted was from a few years ago and things have either changed in the meantime or it's entirely possible that my informant had the wrong kind of reservation.
 
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