Mountain Trader

The line of posts I recall indicated that the machines don't take US credit cards, and the lines to buy a ticket from the agent (for either Euros or a credit card ( including US cards)) can be quite long-I seem to recall 15-20 minutes, but I may be misremembering that, as one of our former presidents might have said.

The best way to pay is to have Euro coins and use the machines (they don't take paper Euros, amazingly).

rockcreek

Well everyone, thanks again for all the helpful advice, all of which was right on target. While waiting in a really long line at CDG, two North Americans in front of us confirmed that after repeated tries, their non-CC cards did not work in the machines. (They peeled off and bought tickets with cash.)

Our big problem, the way I view it, is that Air Canada threw in a mystifying 2 hour delay in pushing back from the gate, which got us to CDG at 10am instead of 8am - right in the middle of a whole pile of incoming flights. After retrieving our bags, the wait at the SNCF office was out the door and it took us 45 minutes to get to the window - one of two open, while on the other side, 5 windows were serving a nonexistent queue of TGV passengers. Once we got there, the worker was helpful enough, but her Windows terminal froze and she had to reboot and do the whole thing twice. (Futbol, and shared hatred of Vista is what bonds us together.)

But after that, the ride to St. Michel-Notre Dame was a piece of cake. If I would do it differently, I might have just bought an RER ticket and purchased the Navigo later. I think the 7 euros (or whatever it is) is worth not having to stand in line when you're staggeringly tired. But it was a beautiful day and I did not, at all, mind dragging our stuff past Notre Dame and across the accordion player on the Pont St. Louis.

Also did get a museum pass, from the TI booth in front of the entrance to the Crypt Archaeologique. No problems - in and out. (Curiously, the ticket window at the Crypt does NOT sell the museum pass, even though the lady at the entrance said they did.) The TI only accepts credit card payments, no cash.

My internal clock is all crazy, or it might have been the Armagnac. Good thing the hotel WiFi works. Santé!

nrr

There are EURO bill breaking machines at CDG (inside the ticket office for rail tickets) so if the machines are working one can avoid the long lines at the ticket windows. On a few occasions (unfortunately) they were "out of order".
With the large number of people (many from the USA) who don't have CC with chips, one wonders why they couldn't modify the programming to accept magnetic strip cards.

Mountain Trader

So to confirm, with cash one can buy just the RER ticket at the CDG RER station from the machines (if working of course) and without going through a line. Correct?

imagineertobe

Certainly RATP/STIC/SNCF could modify the programming and all would be fine (to my knowledge the hardware is capable of reading the mag strip already). But it remains a fact that mag strips are easily recreated by fraudsters, whereas the microchip provides encrypted card information and is thus much more secure.

US banks have, to some extent, acknowledged this fact but they also understand that revolutionizing the US card-processing industry would cost much more than they'd like.

JOUY31

Actually, it is SNCF who is in charge of the RER B line from CDG to Gare du Nord (and therefore for the kiosks at CDG), and RATP who is responsible for the Southern part of the line down to Saint Rémy lès Chevreuse . But it is true the RATP kiosks have the same security features as the SNCF kiosks. Quite true.

Mountain Trader

Can anyone confirm or correct?

Efrem

Coins, yes. Bills, no.

The largest Euro coin is 2€. One-way adult fare is 8€70. Depending on how many are traveling, you may need quite a few coins.

rockcreek

Hi everybody: just a follow up to say, surprisingly, that the St. Michel RER machine actually took my wife's Chase Sapphire card. This after I stormed out of the station in a huff, ran back to Ile St. Louis to the cash machine next to the hotel, got change, and ran back.

Shrug. I'm pretty sure it's not a chip/PIN card. Enjoy!