Booking open till 12 March - but not every train

From today, many more trains are bookable - for travel dates up until 12th March 2012.

But there are still some trains that haven't been loaded onto the system yet. And frustratingly, some of these are the overnight return Corail Lunea trains (i.e. the ones with couchette beds that take you back to Paris from French resorts) on Saturday nights from French (and some Italian) resorts. You can travel back on a Sunday - Friday night, but not back on a Saturday night.

We pointed this out to Rail Europe, who asked the French rail operator, SNCF, for a statement.  SNCF say:

"Some Lunea overnight services that should now be open for sale for the winter period, have still not been released for sale. This delay is due to difficulties surrounding the confirmation of the train route and schedule, of these trains. SNCF's technical team are giving top priority to resolving these issues so that the trains can be released for sale as soon as possible."

So best not to rely 100% that these Saturday night returns will run, until they are confirmed and bookable in the system.  If you are wanting to travel overnight, you could come back on Friday evening instead, or you could come back in the daytime with a TGV instead.

We'll monitor the situation and let you know as soon as anything changes.