Issues with web- or app-purchased train tickets: common or rare?

I print my tickets out. No matter which site I’ve used - Trainline, RailEurope, Trenitalia, SNCF and DB - I’ve been able to print tickets. I do look at my tickets on their apps and can see them, but when I’m actually getting on a train, I have the paper ticket in my hand.

Thanks, @Valerie. Do you print them at your hotel/BnB when you're in-country? How do you validate the printed tickets in the machines?

I purchase my train tickets for a specific train while I am back in the US. I take the train tickets with me.

There is no need to validate a train-specific ticket.

Ah. I'm not certain we'll know all of our exact trains before we leave for our 5-week trip, so I am interested in how best to handle in-country purchases. For those that I know in advance (like our initial day), I agree that before-departure purchases are best with printed tickets.

I purchase most of my train tickets ahead of time and print them. But to address your issue, when I have a QR code or ticket for an activity, I also do a screenshot of it. I’ve done that for flights because I didn’t want to worry about having a decent internet connection. I’ve never had an issue doing that for activities or concerts where they scanned my screenshot photo.

@Jean, I do the same thing with screen shots for all tickets and QR codes. So much easier off-line. The updating-QR-code thing mentioned by some on one of the apps would make that impossible, though, so I was interested in how people handled that situation.

Hello melrowgo,

Last September I purchased many regionale tickets for getting around northern Italy on an "as needed" basis and never had trouble producing tickets when asked. I had a TIM simcard in my phone and never had an issue with it working when I needed it to. I had the app but only started using it to buy tickets when the kiosk lines in La Spezia were very long and our time was short. The line moved two places during the time I bought tickets so we left the line, walked to the platform and then I never looked back.

Some people have advocated saving images of the tickets as a back-up. This isn't a terrible idea and it would be easy enough to screenshot the tickets so they are your most recent photos and then delete them when you are done with your train ride. I know I've gotten airline boarding passes to save in the phone's "wallet" app I don't know if you can with tickets or if it is even worth it given you'll need it for a couple of hours tops.

The app will also let you track trains progress and get track assignments for your next train before getting off the train for tight changes.

The common consensus is the Eurail pass in Italy has gone the way of the Traveler's Check in terms of usefulness.

Have a great trip,
=Tod

We traveled around Sicily and other parts of Italy for two months last year. I downloaded the Trenitalia app and purchased many tickets a day or two before use. Never had a problem with the ticket being scanned by a conductor on my phone even near the end of our travels when my SIM card had expired so I wasn’t connected to WiFi. Most of the people on the train were paperless.

Good ol’ printed tix and having you and your travel partner e-mail both tickets to each other as a back-up just in case of a phone malfunction at the moment the conductor calls for your ticket. If, for whatever reason, you can’t pull up the ticket’s QR code on your phone then your travel partner can on theirs.

I take screen shots of the tickets. That way they can be accessed if no wifi.

I save all my train tickets as PDFs to a file on my iPhone so they are available when I don't have internet access.

The updating-QR-code thing mentioned by some

Some who? How do you know they know what they are talking about? Which app?

I have never heard about this by anyone before. People take screenshots, or save locally the PDF files attached to the mails from train companies. Trenitalia has 5.6 millions passengers any day, if there was such a problem we would read hundreds of warnings and complaints on travel forums.

Incidentally, when travelling on Italotreno's and Trenitalia's high speed trains, you can tell conductors the PNR code or write it on the back of your hand and show it this way.

I am one of the people who mentioned not being able to get a connection to pull up my qr code in the app because of network connection. We were at the Venice train station and I couldn't access the app for a few minutes. But I just pulled up the qr code from the email, that was just to show going through the gate to the platform and it was more of an arm wave by the guard. Truthfully, I don't even know if it was necessary to show anything I just did. Anyway, there was no problem on the train, and as I mentioned, at least for Italo, it really looked like they were just quickly comparing the name to their electronic seating chart, very quick and easy.
As others have said, you can do a screen shot, save as pdf or print out for added peace of mind, but with tickets for specific train/seats you should be fine and you don't have to worry about validating.
Last summer, for regional trains (naples-rome, not high speed, and termini to FCO) I just went to the train station the day before, used a kiosk to buy the ticket when I wasn't rushed, and it spit out a ticket. But, I think now that I feel confident using the apps, I probably wouldn't bother with the kiosks, I'd just do it on the app most of the time.

A big thank you to all who have replied with suggestions and experiences. Yes, I am a huge fan of screenshots of QR codes, bar codes, confirmation codes, etc that show proof-of-purchase. Have been for ages (to which my kids roll their eyes). None of this is rocket science, it's just knowing the most practical approaches in advance for what can be a rushed situation.

On most of our international travels, whether throughout Europe, the UK, South America, or Oceana, we've utilized rental cars as we loved the freedom they give us to explore out-of-the way places. For this trip, we will be using the trains much more since we're visiting more cities. With multiple train types and train companies, there are multiple apps and ticket types to utilize. All good, no problem - just learn what needs to be done and do it. As @Dario so kindly mentioned, "Trenitalia has 5.6 millions passengers any day". The Italian train system works just fine and I'm sure it will for us as well. I just don't want to be the ones holding up the line at the kiosk trying to figure things out when it's just as easy to do so in advance.

I won't take up space here quoting the many reviews I read showing ticket-access issues on train apps - it sounds like it's usually not a problem. I did go back through, though, to find out which app used the updating QR codes and realized it was the ATM MIlano app for the city's metro system. That explains why it was not run into by others, and it's something that won't give us an issue.

Thanks again. Any further insights are most welcome.

Thanks everyone for the screen shot idea. I hadn’t thought of doing that. I have 2 train trips on DB and 1 on ÖBB booked. Last year I had no problems with several SNCF and Trenitalia.trips.

I put one of the DB tickets in Apple Wallet. Now I can’t figure out how I did it. I want to add the other DB ticket and the ÖBB. Any hints? I bought all three online rather than through their apps if that makes a difference. Thanks.

Just a comment - I traveled on a lot of trains throughout northern Italy last year. I stayed in 11 cities. Sometimes in the past, nobody checked tickets, but this time almost every train had a conductor checking tickets. So, if you are purchasing a physical paper ticket at the station, this is a reminder to make sure you stamp it in the validation machine before boarding your trains. Same advice for bus tickets & keep your ticket until you have exited the bus or back on the street from the metro.