see   related discussion:to cancel one's ticket - den Fahrschein entwerten

Of the numerous "cancel" hits in the leo.dict "stornieren" would be my choice. You have to pay a Stornogebühr if you cancel your ticket. The insurance would be a Reise-Rücktrittsversicherung, I think. And it's a Fahrkarte or Flugticket you can cancel, not a Fahrschein. A Fahrschein is something you use on a bus or tram for short distances, no way to cancel it IMO.

Hmm, in the other discussion it said "cancel a ticket" is in the Oxford Dictionary of English, so I looked in there and it does have it as one meaning of "cancel": "mark, pierce or tear (a ticket or stamp) to show that it has been used or invalidated: 'cancelling stamps on registered mail"'

I'm wondering what to think of that, though: I can find a few examples of stamps being cancelled, meaning "entwerten":

"Handstamp - 1) a hand-held device used by a postal worker to cancel a stamp or apply a postal marking " http://glossary.usstamps.org/glossary/glbrows...

However, the first 6 pages of Google hits for "cancel a ticket" all mean "stornieren" (thanks nja). I don't doubt that the ODE is right in some situations I can't think of right now, but if "cancel a ticket - eine Fahrkarte entwerten" stays, then "cancel a ticket - eine Fahrkarte stornieren" should be added, as I've seen it badly translated on enough regional transport companies' English information posters to be fed up to the back teeth with being told to cancel my ticket on the tram!

Can anyone find an example of "cancel" as "entwerten" for tickets, so as maybe to see whether we could add [tech.], [arch.] or something?

nja, Fahrscheine hat man (zumindest in D) auch beim Fernverkehr - kein Schaffner verlangt von dir eine "Fahrkarte". Das ist nur ein umgangssprachlicher Ausdruck (kann in Österreich anders sein). Im Flugzeug wäre die Übersetzung "Flugschein".

Einen Fahrschein/Flugschein würde man m. E. nicht stornieren, sondern umtauschen/zurückgeben/sich erstatten lassen.

Stornieren hingegen würde man eine Buchung, einen Flug oder eine Reise.

@archfarchnad
Since living in the country and now only using my car, I'd totally forgotten about "Please cancel your ticket" which always made me want to scrawl "But why, I do want to use your tram, really" on it.
I've googled and googled with numerous variations and I have found the sum total of one site which no longer exists and this one: http://www.rcicommunity.co.uk/planning/journa...
Both sites offering tips to travellers.
I would agree that it is not entwerten, entwerten should be "stamp" (if it gets a date etc. stamped on it) or "punch" if it gets little holes in it.
Cancel a ticket - eine Fahrkarte stonieren
Supported.

Ich schließe mich Sophil vollinhaltlich an. Eine Reise/Buchung wird storniert, aber nicht die Fahrkarte.

@Sophil: Fahrschein, Fahrkarte, Flugschein: Heißt das auf Neudeutsch nicht ohnehin alles "Ticket"...?

The German-English translation of "seinen Fahrschein entwerten" is OK. Leo already has:

to cancel one's ticket seinen Fahrschein entwerten
to punch one's ticket seinen Fahrschein entwerten
to stamp one's ticket seinen Fahrschein entwerten
to validate one's ticket seinen Fahrschein entwerten

... the last three of which sound fine to me for "entwerten". The dictionary says the first one is acceptable too.

The problem is with how to translate "to cancel one's ticket" from English into German.

Although "to cancel one's ticket" may be in the dictionary with the meaning "entwerten", in the real world it is used far, far more often to mean something completely different. If the rarer "entwerten" meaning stays in Leo, then IMHO the far more common meaning "umtauschen"(?) should *also* be in there. So really this should be at "New Entry" - sorry. I'd just never heard of "cancel a ticket" meaning "entwerten".

"Wie kann ich einen Fahrschein umtauschen, den ich noch nicht abgeholt habe? " http://www.thalys.com/de/de/reisen-mit-thalys...

"Jetzt müssen sie den bereits gekauften Fahrschein umtauschen, weil Herr P. verhindert ist. " http://www.startmagazin.de/index.php?rad_id=5550

Not sure if "umtauschen" doesn't actually mean to give it to someone else, too, though.

No wonder there is confusion here. I believe this arises from a similar action - that of stamping or "clipping" some kind of ticket [an overall term to include things like stamps] - but which then sets off two different processes into action.

„Eine Fahrkarte entwerten“ is, in English, "to vaildate a travel ticket". You buy a ticket to travel on a bus, for instance, but it doesn't have any value until you want to use it for a journey. [You could have bought it weeks in advance and not travelled yet.] When you „entwert“ in German you "vaildate" it in English because it then has the value of showing you have paid for that journey, for instance if the inspector comes on. If you were to "cancel" it, it would have no value. If the ticket collector or train manager or bus conductor [Ah, those were the days...] inspects your ticket, he or she then either clips or stamps the ticket, they never [nowadays] cancel it.

On the other hand, the ink stamp on a stamp on a letter is called a cancellation because it stops anyone else from removing it from the envelope and using it again. When you buy a stamp it has a value as the purchaser has paid for the delivery of an item of post. When stuck on an envelope the Post Office then "cancels" the stamp to show that is has been used.

Postage stamps have a value and have been used to show payment, etc. A travel ticket is only of value when used on a journey [although it may exchange hands for money] it is otherwise just a piece of card.

There may be an element of old fashioned / modern usage here as well as the difference between German and English language use.

I think it's a bit inaccurate to say that a ticket has no value until it has been "entwertet". In fact, if you tried to sell your ticket, I suspect you would find that the opposite was true.

@XY Please look at my last-but-one paragraph...

The fact that the ticket can change hands for money shows that it does have some value before it is used. That value resides in the fact that the bearer (assuming the ticket is transferrable) is entitled to use public transport. The bearer might not wish to make a journey until some point in the distant future, but he is entitled to make that journey from the time at which he acquires the ticket.