NickB

No. The compostage can never be on board. It has to be done at the departure station in the yellow stamping machine at the entrance of the platforms. That said, I am not sure whether rail-air train tickets need to be stamped or not: if they are issued as e-ticket, then there is no need to stamp them. When the ticket needs to be stamped, it can be done at any time prior to departure on the day of departure.

On board, there might be a conductor to punch tickets (rather than stamp it) but conductors do not always come round so it could not be a condition of validity of the onward ticket, I would have thought.

uclabruin82

Thanks again NickB. In case it is not obvious, I have never taken a train within France so this is very helpful.

TographerE

The stamping of the ticket depends on the station. When I pick mine up the day before travel my local TGV Air station never stamps the ticket. However at CDG they always say that it has been done and you don't need to put the ticket in the yellow machine.

bodory

This is crazy!

Goldorak

NickB

So, these are e-tickets that do not need to be stamped then.

carnarvon

1) I have never seen an e-ticket for TGV Air. How does it look?

2) my train tickets, which I pick up at the TGV Air counter have always been without need for "compostage". Always. Irrespective of the train station, I have always been told "le billet est déja composté".

NickB

An SNCF e-ticket does not necessarily "look" any different to a normal transferable train ticket, in that it can be on a normal stock ATB-style cardboard ticket. The difference is that it is nominal and non-transferable, unlike ordinary train tickets not issued as e-tickets. E-tickets can be on other supports too (eg: print-at-home ticket or electronic via one of the SNCF apps) but such alternative formats are presumably not allowable for rail-air tickets.

uclabruin82

I agree as well. Luckily, I did not have to twist my wife's arm too hard to convince her to spend an afternoon in Reims!

carnarvon

Sorry for my sounding somehow dum, but can you explain what you are talking about ?

As far as my experience goes, a TGV Air ticket has to be picked up at the TGV Air counter at a train station.

I know of no other alternative.
​​

NickB

...hence why I wrote "but such alternative formats are presumably not allowable for rail-air tickets".
For the SNCF, an "e-ticket" ("e-billet", en langue originale) is characterised by the fact that it is a ticket which is issued to a specific person for a specific itinerary on a specific train and the right to transportation is based on an electronic record. This is not true of most other types of train tickets issued by SNCF. Most tickets sold by SNCF are freely transferable (i.e. they can be used by anybody even if a specific person is named on it). It is only "e-billets" (and also "billets imprimés") which are nominal and non-transferable. They also have the additional characteristic of being exempted from the "compostage" requirement.

Now, ordinary e-tickets can be held on a variety of physical supports: it can be a standard ATB-type ticket (what SNCF calls "billet IATA"), it can be a printed pdf or it can be an image in the sncf app. For Rail-Air tickets, however, the rules are more restrictive as to the physical support: they are issued as a physical "billet IATA" and alternative supports, such as print-at-home tickets or ticket record in the app are not allowed.

As to compostage, AFAIK, it is only on the Brussels and Strasbourg routes (i.e the "air&rail" routes) that the ticket need not be stamped/composté. On other routes (i.e. the "TGV Air" routes), you still need to stamp them. This would suggest that the rail ticket on TGV-Air routes (as distinct from Air&Rail routes) is probably not technically an e-ticket but the difference may not mean much in practice owing to the specifics of TGV AIr tickets..

Zarmakuizz

Could somebody retrieve a train ticket for you? Is there a "procuration" (proxy) system available?
This would be handy in case you might arrive just-in-time at the train station, and cannot be there the day before.

carnarvon

That is incorrect.

I can confirm that TGV Air tickets do not need to be "compostés" (i.e. punched in the orange device). They are considered as ​already​​​​​ validated. Told so by the staff manning the desk.

NickB

Thanks for the clarification, as both Air France and the SNCF say the opposite on their respective websites.

adlibitum

Hi,

I've read this thread and also the Air France "Air & Rail" page but am still a bit confused. I am considering traveling in a party of three from SFO-CDG in Business on award tickets with Paris as our final destination. If I add an onward train connection however to, for example, Tours or Reims, the price in miles is quite a bit lower, especially for three passengers total. We would travel with carry on bags only, so in all likelihood there would not be a problem to simply leave the airport at CDG with our hand carried bags, as I understand it.

However, in the case we are somehow required to gate check our bags, can I confirm that any checked baggage would be claimed at the baggage carousel at CDG? In other words, must baggage be claimed at CDG in any case when there is a train connection, or is there an arrangement with SNCF to automatically transfer bags to a train to, in my example, Tours or Reims? To restate, my goal is to leave CDG with our bags.

Many thanks