While travelers are annoyed by very high train prices, the Minister of Transport has announced a price freeze. It will concern OuiGo, Intercités trains and the ceilings for tickets purchased with Avantage cards in 2024.
It’s undeniable: train prices are soaring, to the point that some people prefer to choose planes for their trips. As soon as sales of SNCF tickets opened for the Christmas period, many Internet users regretted the already very high prices. Buying an SNCF Advantage card is no longer so economical either. It is in this complicated context that the Minister of Transport Clément Beaune made new announcements, on Thursday December 7, 2023, to France Info.
Freeze of OuiGo and Intercités prices in 2024
The minister assured that ticket prices will not increase during the year 2024. However, this does not concern all trains. The trains affected will be:
- OuiGo trainsthe low-cost TGV service (running up to 320 km/h) from the SNCF,
- Intercity trainsmain line trains, traveling at up to 160 km/h.
The Advantage card is also affected by this price freeze in 2024, warned Clément Beaune. More precisely, the minister indicates that the ceilings for tickets purchased with this card will not increase over the next year.
As a reminder, Advantage cards (Young, Adult, Senior) allow you to reserve train tickets with capped prices: €49 for journeys of less than 1h30, €69 for journeys of 1h30 to 3h, €89 for journeys lasting more than 3 hours. These ceilings were raised during the summer of 2023. On the other hand, the minister did not mention a freeze in 2024 concerning the price of the card itself, currently sold at €49.
Finally, Clément Beaune spoke again about Pass Rail, the unlimited transport project in France, which should be launched during the summer of 2024, for a price of around €49 per month (price still to be confirmed). This subscription should allow unlimited travel on TER and Intercités trains.
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