Today, we booked tickets on SNCF website for travel in October. We are departing Paris by train on the same day as another couple. They reserved seats from Gard de Lyon to Valence, we will travel from Montparnasse station to Tours. We both used SCNF to purchase PREM tickets on TGV and printed our tickets within 30 minutes of each other. Both couples seats are in 1st class, no trip insurance was purchased, no children are travelling. However, one couple's tickets printed with an elaborate watermark/background and the other couple's tickets are very plain with no background. All information seems to be the same, just organized differently and without the background images. The plain looking tickets includes the same detail, traveler's name, the car number, seat assignment, date/time, etc. Should we be concerned about the difference in look of the tickets? Thank you.

What counts is the flashcode. That's what the conductor's zapper will read.

Excellent! Thanks very much for your reply. Our printed tickets do have the flash code. Thanks again.

I think the couple with the "pain" tickets just printed their confirmation, not the actual tickets. I've bought a lot of PREM tickets, and never had one without the elaborate watermark.

that should be "plain."

That's what I was afraid of...we're the ones with the plain tickets. Now that we've ended the session, I guess I'll have to see if we can get back in to print them.

You should be able to go back in anytime and retrieve them. I've had to do that when my printer drum ran out, and it worked fine.

Hubby here ...

I'm pretty certain what I printed for the Paris-Tours trip is comparable to "e-tickets" on a U.S. airline. The front of the page (for each person) is divided top-to-bottom. The top is the confirmation, the bottom is the e-billet with the scan code. The back is similarly divided, the top (which is the back of the confirmation) is promotional stuff, the bottom (which is the back of the e-billet) is the Terms of Use.

The terms of use state "Cette confirmation e-billet doit être presentê lors du contrôle, ou à l’accès au train." I believe that clearly indicates THIS is the document that must be presented to board. There's also language describing that the e-billet must be printed on white, A4 paper with a clear image -- indicating this is a document that will be tendered and scanned.

In addition, I can find no other options on the confirming e-mail or the SNCF Web site to print anything different.

The other couple's e-billet has a different format, but the same type of scan image and a slightly different wording on the Terms of Use (but substantively the same).

I think the explanation is simply that SNCF's Web site is lashed together from some separate ticketing software modules (or is undergoing revision) and different e-billet formatting code is being used for the two routes.

-- Paul