France Just Put Next Summer’s Trains on Sale Before Christmas

Anyone eyeing a French rail trip in the first half of next year can now book it in one go. On November 12, SNCF opened sales on SNCF Connect for TGV INOUI trains within France for travel from January 7 to July 2, 2027, and for Intercités trains from January 7 to March 31. International TGV services, including TGV Lyria to Switzerland and TGV INOUI to Italy, Spain, Brussels, Luxembourg and Freiburg, are now bookable for travel from April 1 to July 2. Until now, winter and spring trains went on sale in separate waves, so February school holidays, May bridge weekends and June trips had to be booked at different times.

Not every train follows that calendar. OUIGO high-speed services and OUIGO’s classic Paris to Brussels trains have been on sale since September 30 for travel from December 13, 2026, to July 2, 2027, while domestic OUIGO Train Classique tickets open 60 days before departure. Regional TER sales windows vary between three and five months depending on the region. TGV INOUI services to Germany and trains run with Deutsche Bahn and SBB are released gradually from six months out, and engineering works can push some of those releases back.

SNCF is also leaning into ski season. It has added 15,000 seats to Alpine destinations such as Chambéry, Annecy and the Tarentaise valleys compared with last winter, for a total of 570,000, and expects more than 150,000 seats to be available on the peak weekend of February 13, 2027. There are extra direct Paris to Tarentaise trains on Fridays and Sundays, and a daily OUIGO round trip between Paris Gare de Lyon and Bourg-Saint-Maurice runs from December 17 to March 26, with promotional fares from €19 on some departures. Eurostar’s Snow trains return from London, Brussels, Amsterdam and Rotterdam.

One caution: booking early does not automatically mean paying less. SNCF prices move with demand, so a quiet midweek train may still be cheap closer to the date while peak ski weekends and holiday Fridays tend to fill and climb. Travellers with fixed dates around school holidays, Easter or the May bridges have the most to gain from locking in now, and anyone connecting from Germany or Switzerland should check that their onward leg has actually been released before building a tight itinerary around it.

Sources: SNCF Connect, Asal Media