I am trying to book a train ticket from Paris to Frankfurt early morning since my flight from Frankfurt leaves at 1:30 pm. The eurail site does not have any options to reach before 1:30 pm. The de bahn site has an option which leaves Paris 6:25 am and gets in at 11:10 which suits me but has no price information. How do I find out the ticket price? Also how much time do I need at Frankfurt to catch my flight.
Somehow direct airline tickets from Paris to Frankfurt are very expensive (about $400 to $500) so that is not an option for me.
Appreciate any help.
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Go to www.sncf.com -%26gt; select the blue Voyages billboard -%26gt; and complete the form for your trip. Do not select English or you%26#39;ll be bounced over to a different web site. The problem with Eurail is that it%26#39;s a travel agency/reseller that adds a commission to the SNCF fares, and then doesn%26#39;t list all the routes, or even all the scheduled trains on the routes it does sell.
You can also Google budget airlines and see if there is one that will get you to Frankfurt Airport.
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You probably won%26#39;t be able to find timetables or frares on voyages-sncf.com for 26 January because you can only book up to 90 days ahead. The other site you could use is tgv-europe.com but you would have the same problem there. In the case of the French site leave the default %26quot;home%26quot; country as France. On tgv-europe choose Great Britain as your %26quot;home%26quot; country. Either site should give you substantially lower fares than RailEurope. Go to seat61.com for a detailed explanation of how to book train trips using these sites. Another possible problem is that new timetables come in to effect on 12/13 so you may have trouble finding the train you want in any case.
Next problem is getting to Frankfurt in time for your flight, presumably to the US. If you take the 06:25 train and change at Köln you can catch an ICE train direct to Frankfurt airport and make it by 10:51 according to bahn.de. The problem I see is that you only have EIGHT minutes to make the change at Köln. That%26#39;s a pretty big station and, if you are not familiar with it, an 8 minute change is VERY tight. Given that you have to get from the station to your check-in desk I think a 10:51 arrival is still very tight for your flight. An 11:10 arrival in Frankfurt would definitely be too late as you would still have to get to the airport. You should check with your airline and ask them to give you a very specific recommendation as to the check-in time for your flight. Frankly I think you should take the last train the previous day and spend the night in Frankfurt. Anything else has a significant element of risk.
BTW when looking for trains into the airport the German word for airport is Flughafen and the French is Aéroport. Last I checked there are no budget airlines flying between Paris and Frankfurt.
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The db website gives an advance fare of 39 euros for 0704 train from Paris, change Mannheim and arrive at the airport at 11.06. This is a more relaxed connection than the slightly earlier train via Cologne and would be my preferred option.
You should be able to book it on the db site and they will post your ticket.
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We have done this trip in the past to catch a flight and didn%26#39;t have a problem. We took the TGV to Strasbourg and then had to switch to a different train (an ICE) to get to Frankfurt%26#39;s airport. We got there at 12:10 for a 2:00pm flight. We made the plane with plenty of time. It all depends on your risk/reward bias as to whether you want to hope nothing happens on the way to the airport.
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Thanks everyone. I booked my ticket at RailEurope. Leaving 7:04 from Paris Arriving 10:58 at Frankfurt main (no stops) for Cdn $67. From Frankfurt Main to Frankfurt Airport will be another 20 to 25 mins I figure so I will get there at around 11:30. My plane leaves from Frankfurt at 1:30 pm so that should be sufficient. Fingers crossed
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