Rail-booking shenanigans
Even in the year 2025, rail-booking websites are still screwing up searches and making travellers think tickets aren't available - when in fact they are!
Like many skiers and snowboarders, I was up early this morning. SNCF put tickets on sale for journeys between 8th January and 29th March 2026.
At 5am UK time, there were seats available for February half term. And at 7.30am UK time, there were also seats available for February half term. This was good news.
In terms of pricing, I found that you could get a return ticket from Paris many Alpine destination stations (such as Moutiers, Aime-La-Plagne, Bourg-Saint-Maurice, Oulx, Cluses, St Gervais, Grenoble) for about £260 - £350 return.
Or, a return from London at Feb half term for about £650.
But for January dates, fares were much cheaper. I found tickets for about £250 return all the way from London.
But I was shocked at how some of the rail-booking websites like Trainline and Rail Europe still misfunction. Below is an account of what I found, with screenshots.
Rail-booking errors on rail-booking websites
OK, seriously. It's 2025 and this kind of crap should not be happening. But it is. Like it has been for years and years and years.
If they won't fix it, you need to be aware of it. Then, you can work around it.
1. The starting point problem
When you use a rail-booking website, you need to put your starting station and your destination.
Options on the Trainline website include 'London any' and 'London St Pancras International'.
Either of them seem viable. But in fact, if you enter London St Pancras International, you get no result - see screenshot below:
If you saw the above screenshot and didn't know any better, you'd be forgiven for believing that tickets weren't available. That could mean that you end up not travelling by train. A very bad result.
Only if you were suspicious of results on rail-booking websites, as from bitter experience I am, might you try the search in a different way, to test whether there are actually tickets available.
Lo and behold, when you try using 'London - any' as a starting point, journeys from St Pancras do appear - for exactly the same dates and destination.
This is so utterly ridiculous. Millions upon millions of pounds of railway infrastructure and the travellers who want to book are not being shown available journeys, due to some computer-code glitch, caused by an over-complicated booking system that purports to make things simple.
ARTICLE TO BE CONTINUED SHORTLY...