TGV Lyria - paper ticket with passenger name on it - is it transferable?

[BRX]

A friend has a TGV Lyria ticket which he can't use, so has offered it to me. It's in the form of a paper, printed ticket (in what I think of as the standard CIV format), but it has his name on it. The question is whether there would be any problem in my using it.

I can find Lyria conditions here:

https://www.tgv-lyria.com/sites/default/files/inline-files/tgv-lyria-general%20conditions-transport-en.pdf

and on page 6 it says

When making a booking, the passenger, or the person purchasing a ticket, must ensure that the
information provided or entered is accurate, namely the date and time and the route, as well as the
passenger's last name, first name and date of birth, which are required to purchase non-transferable
tickets, such as the e-ticket.

TGV LYRIA tickets which do not bear the passenger’s name are transferable, as long as the journey has
not yet started. However, passengers are not permitted to sell their tickets

The ticket I've been offered *does* have a name on it, but it's not an e-ticket.

It doesn't satisfy the definition of a "ticket which does not bear the passenger's name" ... unless the name printed on the ticket is not the "passenger's name" but just the purchaser's name.

All other references to non-transferable tickets seem to refer to e-tcikets.

Does anyone know the answer to this?

 

[yorkie]

I'm in the position of wanting to get TGV tickets from Paris to Barcelona but we'd rather not have all tickets be tied to a specific person so I'd also be interested in hearing the answer to this.

 

[duesselmartin]

I don't have a source at hand but I do believe the name is the passengers name. In practice I have not seen that ID was checked but I would not bank on it.

 

[blackfive460]

I've travelled from Genève to Paris four times and was once asked for my passport so, even if it is unlikely, there is that possibility.

 

[Frothy]

I travelled on Lille-Lyon TGV last week and was asked for ID although I did have an e-ticket. I think the ID was to check that I was the named holder of the carte avantage but I can't be too sure.

 

[D6130]

When we book paper TGV tickets on-line between Paris and Torino/Milano we have to specify the name and date of birth for each passenger and the names are printed on the tickets. These tickets are only valid for use by the named person and are not transferable....although we have never been asked for passport indentification by train managers pre-Covid. Unfortunately @yorkie , I very much doubt that you'll be able to book non-nominated TGV tickets in advance....maybe only if you take the chance to purchase them on the day of travel from a TVM, in which case, even if there are sufficient seats remaining, the price will be much higher and you couldn't guarantee that all members of your group would be able to sit together.

 

[BRX]

When we book paper TGV tickets on-line between Paris and Torino/Milano we have to specify the name and date of birth for each passenger and the names are printed on the tickets. These tickets are only valid for use by the named person and are not transferable....

How do you know they are non transferable - is this written in conditions somewhere?

 

[d9009alycidon]

They might ask for the credit card with which the ticket was purchased, and if they dont match you could have trouble. Happened to me on a ICE in Germany, where my company credit card had to be changed for security purposes between buying the ticket and using it, the ticket inspector didnt speak English and started shouting at me in German when they didnt match - thankfully another passenger intervened and an explanation was given OK

 

[D6130]

How do you know they are non transferable - is this written in conditions somewhere?

It says so on the SNCF website booking form when you purchase the tickets.

 

[BRX]

They might ask for the credit card with which the ticket was purchased, and if they dont match you could have trouble. Happened to me on a ICE in Germany, where my company credit card had to be changed for security purposes between buying the ticket and using it, the ticket inspector didnt speak English and started shouting at me in German when they didnt match - thankfully another passenger intervened and an explanation was given OK

Happily there is no longer this requirement to produce a credit card as ID on DB services.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Happily there is no longer this requirement to produce a credit card as ID on DB services.

This is (was) an odd little quirk which was caused by German law, which bans organisations from using the national ID card for certain purposes, I believe. Otherwise in a country with effectively compulsory identity cards (though unlike the Netherlands you can't be fined for not carrying one) it would be obvious to just use those.

 

[AlbertBeale]

In the past, I've been asked for a name when booking rail travel tickets for places in Europe, but only one name even if I'm buying a pair of tickets. In cases like this, my travelling companion could be someone different from the person I had in mind when booking, and it wouldn't matter. I'm trying to remember in which country/ies this was the case... I might have some old tickets somewhere which would remind me, but they aren't to hand right now.

Of course, going back decades, asking for names when buying cross-continent tickets never seemed to happen at all.

 

[zero]

They might ask for the credit card with which the ticket was purchased, and if they dont match you could have trouble. Happened to me on a ICE in Germany, where my company credit card had to be changed for security purposes between buying the ticket and using it, the ticket inspector didnt speak English and started shouting at me in German when they didnt match - thankfully another passenger intervened and an explanation was given OK

They did not ask for the card with which the ticket was purchased. During the purchase process there was an opportunity to select a form of ID to be presented at ticket inspections, and you could enter the number of any bank card.

 

[duesselmartin]

theoretically you have to show an ID with your BahnCard now, but in reality it rarely if never happens.
Anything with a picture on it, driving licence, health insurance card ect . suffice.

 

[dutchflyer]

It depends on HOW the ticket was purchased-but as I read above it seems anyone has booked online, which of course is quite understandable. In that case there is indeed an obligation to show ID if asked for (depends on country, chance will be much higher on INternational as for domestic). This is to prevent fraud. However, as I used 6 TGV-trains last autumn on an InterRail there were never ticket checks on board-but in half the cases there were gates, where also this ´pass sanitaire´ was checked before boarding.
The old style tickets bought from counters or even machine tickets are definitely unique and should be printed on security ticket paper and hence not much chance on being fraudulently used.
But more and more railways are changing ala airline over to named tickets for everyone.
To have a valid ID on you is not unique for NL, it is more or less in various forms a law anywhere on the continent. And not just govmt. officials can ask for it.
The old style German system was to prevent an infringement on assumed ´privacy rights´ by anxious citizens-quite a big issue in DE in general- by no need perse for ID to show-they have changed this by now at least 5 yrs ago to ID. But the last 2 yrs even that gets rarely asked for on ticket check-as long as you sit on a reserved seat shown up in their own system, its usually OK.
(PS-a business can somehow get ´for employees only´ labelled tickets, but its beyond my knowledge to know all details)

 

[BRX]

The old style tickets bought from counters or even machine tickets are definitely unique and should be printed on security ticket paper and hence not much chance on being fraudulently used.

These ones - although bought online - are on that security type paper (posted out rather than print at home), so I would have thought they are unique. So they seem to fall between two categories.

Well, I asked TGV Lyria directly, and they tell me that it's not transferable. They didn't provide me with any link to the specific conditions for this ticket type, but said ID required at ticket control, and not possible to change the name on a ticket.

I don't think I'm going to take the risk of trying to use it on a cross border service, even though it sounds like it might actually be fine in practice.

 

[yorkie]

When we book paper TGV tickets on-line between Paris and Torino/Milano we have to specify the name and date of birth for each passenger and the names are printed on the tickets. These tickets are only valid for use by the named person and are not transferable....although we have never been asked for passport indentification by train managers pre-Covid. Unfortunately @yorkie , I very much doubt that you'll be able to book non-nominated TGV tickets in advance....maybe only if you take the chance to purchase them on the day of travel from a TVM, in which case, even if there are sufficient seats remaining, the price will be much higher and you couldn't guarantee that all members of your group would be able to sit together.

To be clear, what I am trying to do is:
- book for a group of 3 of us; I am happy for my name to be committed to the booking
- another person may wish to join us at a later date; if this happens I can't see an easy way for them to book online to get a seat at our table?
- if another person does join us, I'd like them to take the ticket nominated for someone who has FIP travel facilities and for that person to rebook a FIP ticket; is that possible?

Therefore my question is whether I am at an advantage if I get a paper ticket, or an e-ticket, or if there is actually no difference?

 

[D6130]

if another person does join us, I'd like them to take the ticket nominated for someone who has FIP travel facilities and for that person to rebook a FIP ticket; is that possible?

As far as I'm aware, FIP travel faciities are not available on any international TGV service. They're certainly not on the TGV France-Italy services between Paris and Torino/Milano, which we use regularly. Even if they were available, based on the second class one way walk-up fare, any potential one way second class FIP ticket at 50% discount is going to be considerably more expensive than a first class advance ticket booked on-line.

- if another person does join us, I'd like them to take the ticket nominated for someone who has FIP travel facilities and for that person to rebook a FIP ticket; is that possible?

Pretty certain that that's not possible. What do other members think?

Therefore my question is whether I am at an advantage if I get a paper ticket, or an e-ticket, or if there is actually no difference?

TBH, I don't think it makes any difference....although, as always, I'm open to correction if anyone knows differently in the case of Paris-Barcelona.

One think that I have noticed on my travels is that the Lyria and France-Italy TGVs do carry passengers on French internal jouneys to and from the last/first stations before the frontier (i.e. Paris-Dijon-Dole-Frasne, Paris-Bourg en Bresse-Bellegarde and Paris-Lyon-Aix les Bains-Chambery-Modane). It may therefore be possible for your FIP friend to book a separate discount seat/ticket from Paris to the pre-frontier stop and then a different international one from there to the destination. However, that would be a lot of faff and you wouldn't be able to sit together for some or all of the journey. For the small saving it would make, I would be inclined just to book the through international fare. What it all boils down to is that the various railways involved - just like the cheaper airlines - want you to book your journies as far in advance as possible and make few, if any, concessions to short notice or walk-up travellers.

 

[riceuten]

In 40 years of traveling on European Rails, I have been asked once for my credit card as "ID" on an ICE in Germany. about 20 years ago. Never, ever on a TGV

 

[yorkie]

Well after all that, the SNCF-Connect website won't let me pay for some reason; my card works everywhere else, and so my order has been "cancelled"


I looked again for 2 passengers and it said I could get a discount with a "Carte Avantage Week-end ou Adulte":

So I got one of those, but now I am trying to make a booking for 3 of us; took me a while to work it out but when I added it to my basket I get:

An unidentified error has occurred.

Please try again later.

I find the SNCF website really complicated to use.

Edit: I tried Trainline and that also gave an error:

Uh oh. The reservation was not successful and we’re unfortunately not exactly sure why. Please try again. If you’re booking a journey with several trains or if it’s a round trip, please try to reserve them separately.

The issue seems to be with the discount card? I only got the discount card because when I planned a journey for 2 passengers the SNCF site recommended I get one and showed a reduced price if I did. Anyone got any ideas how to get around this?

I am now wondering if it was worth the hassle to get the discount card!

Edit: I've posted a separate thread for this at https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...an-sncf-carte-advantage-card-discount.227806/

 

[BRX]

Is it a multi-leg journey? I don't have much recent experience with the SNCF booking system specifically, but it does quite often seem to be something that goes wrong with international bookings - the website offers you a fare and you go all the way through the process until at the last moment it announces that the fare is no longer available. There was a period when this would quite regularly happen on the DB website when trying to book combined Eurostar/DB tickets. I assume this is something to do with the different companies involved holding out-of-date info on the availability on other companies' trains.

Sometimes I just have to give up on an attractive looking multi leg fare and book the different parts separately. That of course leaves worries about missed connections, although the Railteam arrangement helps in theory, if it covers the companies concerned.

The experience of booking international rail journeys in Europe online *is* gradually becoming a bit better (despite all the difficulties that remain, it's less difficult than it was 5 or 10 years ago) but of course it's still no match for the ease of booking an air ticket.

At the moment, I find that booking a journey across one border usually works pretty well (ie the ticket is for a train of the company whose website you are using, plus a connection on another company) but once you want to do more than that - journeys where more than one border, or three or more different operators are involved, things start to get a bit sketchy.