train tickets will soon be payable in instalments

If the prices of SNCF train tickets are not intended to fall in the coming months, customers should however have access to payment facilities soon. The railway company is currently working on setting up a split payment for tickets, according to information from the Parisian .

The objective of the SNCF would be to allow customers to pay in installments from a certain amount, which according to the daily would be around 50 euros. It should therefore primarily concern travel on the main lines and not daily trains. A way to prevent some from giving up on their trips because of the price of tickets. Indeed, according to SNCF Voyageurs boss Christophe Fanichet, “from the 20th of each month, the first reason for refusal of payment is “insufficient funds”“.

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A call for tenders is said to be underway to enable this new solution to be implemented next summer. It should be available for online ticket reservations only, not at the box office.

A year of strong bookings

The train has been a particularly popular means of transport for the French this year: more than 22 million tickets have been reserved for the months of July and August alone. That is 10% more than in 2019, a pre-pandemic year which had already been marked by record levels of reservations.

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But many travelers have blamed the rail company for its high fares in a busy year. According to INSEE, in the space of one year, between April 2021 and April 2022, the price of train tickets has increased by an average of 14.6%. And, between January and April 2022, prices jumped 15.3%. Results disputed by the SNCF, which highlights that a growing share of travelers use discount cards and therefore really pay less when checking out.