Train - Paris to Barcelona - Does the name on the ticket & passport need to match?

peopleiknow1

Good afternoon all,

We have a trip booked in October, train ticket is in our married name, but my wife’s passport is still in her maiden name, as both countries are in Europe with free movement will this cause a problem?

Eurostar have no problem just take a copy of our marriage certificate with us; and a quick call to easyJet for our return journey, name on ticket changed FOC, however trying to get a straight answer out of SNCF is proving more difficult 😣.

eDicky

There is no passport check between France and Spain. I've never known a ticket inspector in Europe to inspect anything more than the ticket.

daveyjp

Once within Schengen there will be no passport checks.

gettingtheresometime

eDicky said:

There is no passport check between France and Spain. I've never known a ticket inspector in Europe to inspect anything more than the ticket.

Yes there is....I used this service last month & at the first station on the French side (I traveled from Barcelona to Paris) all passports were examined. No one looked at the names on tickets to see if they matched the name on the passports

My ticket was only checked once & that was at Barcelona so I could get onto the platform 

Voyager2002

gettingtheresometime said:

eDicky said:

There is no passport check between France and Spain. I've never known a ticket inspector in Europe to inspect anything more than the ticket.

Yes there is....I used this service last month & at the first station on the French side (I traveled from Barcelona to Paris) all passports were examined. No one looked at the names on tickets to see if they matched the name on the passports

In most (all?) EU countries there is a legal requirement to carry ID and spot checks are routinely carried out, often near national borders. However, it would be a breach of EU law to establish passport control at borders within the Schengen zone (eg the France-Spain border). It is not at all surprising that there was a spot check on your train, but that does not mean that there will also be a check on the next train on this route.

tightauldgit

I've had ticket checks on trains and I've had passport checks on trains but I've never had anyone check to see if the two things match up - generally they are done by different people. 

I would think that the train company do have it within their rights to check that the ID of the passenger matches the name on the ticket but I've never seen it happen. 

I think you should be fine. 

Recently took train from Paris to Brussels and Brussels to Luxembourg and on both occasions it was only a ticket check - nobody cared about passports.

adindas

peopleiknow1 said:

Good afternoon all,

We have a trip booked in October, train ticket is in our married name, but my wife’s passport is still in her maiden name, as both countries are in Europe with free movement will this cause a problem?

Eurostar have no problem just take a copy of our marriage certificate with us; and a quick call to easyJet for our return journey, name on ticket changed FOC, however trying to get a straight answer out of SNCF is proving more difficult 😣.

Checking Ticket and Checking recognisable ID on the train (Not necessarily Passport) are two different things

When you buy a special train ticket which is not transferable, they will need to make sure that the ticket is not used by a person who is not entitled to. EU Citizen could normally produce a local recognisable photo ID, EU ID card. Unfortunately for British citizen travelling abroad most of do not have these form of photo IDs. So the only things they could use as recognisable form of identification are their passports.

A few months ago when EUR 9 ticket, was available in Germany a few tourists got fine on the spot as they can not produce a photo ID.

Typically this ticket are sold at a heavily discounted price. If you still remember when you bought, does it say non transferable ? If not the only way to check it is to contact them to be in a saver side. Another alternatively is to take your chance.

peopleiknow1

Thanks for all the input, I will continue to pursue SNCF and try and get the name changes, but if that fials we will just have to take our chances 😀

gettingtheresometime

peopleiknow1 said:

Thanks for all the input, I will continue to pursue SNCF and try and get the name changes, but if that fials we will just have to take our chances 😀

As I said I travelled in the opposite direction but there were no checks (passport name v ticket name) - I had a paper copy only just in case my phone/ipad died and they just scanned the bar code and sent me on my merry little way.