Purchased sncf tickets online; have to check in?
 

I purchased our tickets from sncf online. I printed them off. Now when I go to Gare De Lyon do I have to check in at a desk before we can board the train?

So these were discounted fares and you had the option to print on your own printer?
then no, you don't have to do anything with them until the conductor comes to your seat on the train and asks to see your tickets.

I used the printed tix in France for the first time just a few days ago, and it worked like a charm--very simple. I was wondering about it beforehand, also.

As an aside, this was kind of interesting, I thought. There were four of us, and we had four aisle seats, across from and in front of/ behind each other. The car wasn't crowded at all, so we enjoyed the extra room and certainly could have moved anywhere we wanted to; it just seemed like a strange way of seating us.

Did the same thing, and I was tickled pink with how straightforward it seemed to be. I can't help but think that we will go to a "window" even though I trust what you all are telling me - - that it is not necessary.

I lose things all the time - - I appreciated that they e-mailed the vouchers (or shall I call them actual tickets?) as PDF file/attachments.

Very cool.

Best wishes,

Rex

Thanks for the info guys! 1 week and counting!

With a regular ticket in France, I always went to a little machine and inserted the ticket for "composting". Is that not necessary with the on-line tickets??

She printed her own tickets - you just use plain printer/copy paper. It prints your name all over the 'ticket' area, like a watermark of sorts. No one else can use them since you (usually) have to show id to the conductor with them. They are not refundable or exchangeable. So, no composting needed.

Regular train tickets can be changed/refunded to a degree (correct?) and are often good for 'all day' not just one particular train, so they must be 'composted' or canceled prior to boarding the train.

No "composting" necessary nor did we have to provide ID, and that surprised me. The conductor gave it a cursory glance, and that was it.

They have information on the website about that, and on the ticket itself, if one reads it (I know Rex claims to know French to some degree). There would be no point to composting them because they are completely nonrefundable.

It does say composting not necessary on the ticket, but it's understandable to have questions until you've gone through the process. We've all been warned about and heard horror stories about people who forgot to put tix through the machines.

We've just used them as well (the second time was two days ago), and as others have said, there is no need to either check in or compost the ticket

As stated in the conditions of use, you do have to show a picture ID when the ticket inspectors come through the car ("Lors des contrôles, vous devrez obligatoirement présenter une piéce d'identité officielle en cours de validité avec photo : carte d'identité, passeport, permis de conduire out carte de séjour").

On the trip out, the inspector gave a cursory look at both tickets and passports; but the inspector on our return trip was quite officious, very carefully checking name and date of birth for each before punching the ticket.

Has anyone else received a newsletter from SNCF? (I assume this started since I bought an e-ticket from them, and so, now the have my name, address, e-mail and so on).

I don't object - - and it has a lot of useful info on various promotional rates; unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to share it onward (I guess I could do a screen capture and give it a geocities link - - but it's a dynamic page, and so, it would lose all the "hot links", which might defeat the purpose).

Yes, I get them occasionally. As with any other online purchase, you've given your email for the confirmation...

Yes... I didn't mean to suggest that they were abusing the privilege of having my name and e-mail address.

More like offering to share this info, with anyone who might want to know about promotional fares.

Yep, I'm on their email list, too.

Just to confirm the (already known) response to the original question - - indeed, no &quot;check-in&quot; before boarding the train (since our train was from Biarritz at 11 o'clock at night, there would have been no one there with whom we even <i>could</i> check-in!)

Just showed the tickets we had printed off for ourselves (and passport as ID).

Topping for Bob Brown