Collecting SNCF tickets from machine with magnetic strip card

Hi Kay. You won't know for sure until you try it. But you can also just go to the ticket window and get them from a person at a station or at an SNCF booth. Enjoy your trip!

The tickets you bought are likely TER tickets, meaning for regional trains that don't have reserved seats. Since they are on card stock and must be validated in the platform stamping machine, they cannot be emailed. If you have a chip in your card, should work. The SNCF ticket machines do not have magnetic strip readers, so there is no way it an tell whether of not your card has a magnetic strip. It doesn't care. If it has chip it will know. Whether or not you need a PIN, I know not. But you can always go to ticket window where they have magnetic strip readers on their cash registers, and they can print out your tickets.

Every card I took was chip and signature. I was able to print tickets easily at the yellow machines. I think I bought my reserved tickets from Rail Europe (because I was having trouble getting it done on SNCF) and I think that makes a difference. You can always go to the window and get your tickets from an agent, but there may be a line.

I picked up tickets from a SNCF machine last September using a chip-and-magnetic-strip card (Chase Visa), no problem.

There is one thing that I found out on this current trip. Forget about buying a train ticket from a SNCF machine...not possible for us Americans since the machine does not take cash. It only takes a chip and pin credit card for payment. There is a picture of a ten Euro bill having a line through it. Bottom line...stand and wait in line to get the ticket from a staff assisted counter.

Unless you have a true Chip & PIN credit card. But the OP already bought them on-line, now just has to retrieve them out of a machine.

The first time I bought an SNCF ticket in advance I had the choice of using my card at the train station's machine or entering the booking code I was given when I reserved. I doubt if I had a chip card at the time, so I believe I just used the code, and it worked fine.

If you can't get the machine to work, or if you just won't be near a station, you can pick up tickets at any SNCF Boutique. These are "train ticket stores" with locations in every city (multiple locations all over Paris). You take a number like in a bakery and sit in the semi-AC. When your number is displayed, you sit at a desk and complete your transaction - very civilized! For me, picking up tickets only took about 2 minutes; they used the confirmation numbers I had printed out when I bought the tickets, swiped my card, and handed me my tickets.

I agree that there are a multitude of SNCF Boutiques in Paris, and the wait will not be long if you can go in the morning and avoid weekends.
If you don't have a chip-and-pin card, there are no worries, the agent knows what to do with them.
I believe that you can also pay cash in SNCF Boutiques.

Whew! What a relief. Thanks so much, everyone for your help. It's also reassuring to hear that there is a reason for not being able to receive the tickets via email. Our tickets are for a TER train connecting with the TGV. I believe that when I have done this previously it was only for the TGV, not a ter train. I am very glad to hear that having the magnetic strip would not interfere with the collection of the tickets. Our 1st stop in France will be near Sarlat so I will go to the train station there to try to have the tickets issued. I think going directly to a manned booth might be a good idea so if anything does go wrong they can, hopefully deal with it. Again, many, many thanks.

What web site did you use to book your train trips?

The website I used was [email protected]. That appears to be the official French website for train travel within France.