Tickets give you different cars every time you use them.
So technically you can use the ticket if you do not like that particular car you can reset your save data until you get a good car. (If you have backed up your save)
The 1000 ticket has 1000 cars in it.
I have a level 5 ticket that I am "working" on at this time and so far I have gotten 10 different cars, both premium and standard; as someone else said before, with 0 miles.
Birthday tickets - they work best if you create the account a day before the birthday you selected, to to make sure it works. (Before the reset) today you can create an account with 3/31/2011 and tomorrow when you log in you will receive your ticket.
Those too have several cars attached to them.