Choosing First Class on French Trains

I’m writing this while perched on my bag in the luggage zone of a Nice-Marseille TER train. It’s not the most comfortable spot for a nearly three hour journey, but at least I’m not standing. This ticket was booked on RailEurope.com months ago and I didn’t pay much attention to the lack of seat selection, and back then I hadn’t noticed the drop-down options for upgrading your tickets, often at very little cost. Maybe it was available for this train..

This option is sometimes available both when booking and at a later before travel. I’ve since logged in to Rail Europe and upgraded several other tickets to 1st Class for $10 or so. The sooner you do it the cheaper it is – so check for upgrade options when you book. First Class is not a big upgrade but tends to have single seats on one side, which can be nice, and a bit more luggage space. Booking directly on the SNCF website (which is not very user-friendly) will give you the option of choosing specific seats.

Note that the carriages usually have a simple 1 or 2 on the side to denote what class they are, and some carriages are half-and-half. The first class carriages are usually at the ends, but can be anywhere in what are often very long trains. When a train has booked seats Carriage numbers are displayed on the door windows or next to them, along with a guide to what range of seat numbers are at that end of the train. These signs are small and easy to miss, so look closely!

For more information on all things train-related I suggest visiting The Man in Seat 61 🙂