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Eurostar joined Interrail in 2017. |
Interrail = special fare on Eurostar
If you have an Interrail global pass you can use Eurostar between London & Lille, Paris, Brussels, Rotterdam & Amsterdam but you must pay a special passholder fare.
How to buy a Eurostar passholder fare
After buying,
how to choose your seat or change time or date
How much is it?
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London to Lille, Brussels or Paris = €35 in Standard or €40 in Plus.
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London to Rotterdam or Amsterdam = €35 in Standard or €43 in Plus.
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These passholder fares have limited availability and are not always available on the busiest trains or dates, you should check availability before buying a pass. A round trip is simply two one-ways.
About these passholder fares
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You can buy a Eurostar passholder fare if you have an Interrail global pass.
You don't qualify with a one-country pass (believe it or not, I have learnt that I actually need to explain to some people that a one-country pass doesn't cover a two-country Eurostar journey!)
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If you've a 2nd class pass you can only book Standard.
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The passholder fare is the same for children, youths, adults & seniors.
Children aged under 12 must pay the normal adult passholder fare, even if they have a free Interrail pass (but children under 4 travel free, without their own seat).
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If you have a flexi pass, the Eurostar journey must take place on one of your pass travel days. But one pass day can cover a train from your home station to London, Eurostar to Paris, Brussels or Amsterdam, and an onward train to Cologne, Barcelona or wherever.
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A valid pass number is needed to make a booking, simply to confirm that you're a genuine pass customer.
Apart from verifying that you have a valid pass number, Eurostar's ticketing system and Interrail's pass management system are entirely unconnected. Eurostar neither knows nor cares whether your pass is activated or not, or on what days you plan to use it. Meanwhile, the Interrail pass people neither know nor care that you've made a Eurostar reservation, the reservation will not magically appear on your pass or in your Rail Planner app, and it does not in any way activate the pass or commit you to using it on that day. There is absolutely no connection between the Eurostar reservation and your pass. Got it? Fantastic!
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Inbound/outbound days
If you have an Interrail pass, you're only allowed to use it in your home country on two days, normally the first & last days of your trip.
If you live in Britain, Eurostar counts as a journey in your home country so triggers one of your two inbound/outbound days. You can take other trains the same day, for example you could go Edinburgh-London-Paris-Lyon on your first day, Cologne-Brussels-London-Edinburgh on your last day, but you can't go Edinburgh-London day 1, stay overnight, then go London-Paris day 2, then Brussels-London-Edinburgh on the last day, because that would be 3 home country days and you're limited to 2. Got it? Great! More about inbound/outbound journeys.
How availability works
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Availability is limited - check before you buy a pass
Places for Interrail passholders are limited. You don't need a pass number to check passholder availability, simply run an enquiry at www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass.
Or you can use www.raileurope.com. Click Add rail pass below the journey planner and select your pass type and class.
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How passholder availability works
Eurostar has dynamic pricing like an airline, using 'price buckets'.
There are around 12 buckets, let's call the most expensive bucket bucket 1, always available until a train is sold out. Let's call the cheapest bucket 12, only available if you book 6 months ahead for a wet Wednesday in February.
The Interrail passholder fare is in bucket 3. Which means availability is pretty good, even at short notice.
In winter, you'll find availability on most trains, maybe not the busiest ones on a Friday or Sunday afternoon. You may even find places available on the day of travel, but not on all trains.
In summer, you'll find availability on many trains if you book ahead, but I've known people turn up in Paris in July or August to find no Eurostar passholder places for the next 3 days, so book ahead if you can.
Put another way, if the regular price on www.eurostar.com is £143 or less for a particular train, €35 passholder places should be available. But when the regular price is £160 or higher, there will be no passholder places on that train.
See for yourself: Run an enquiry at www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass and check for today, tomorrow & next week.
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Tip: If there's no availability from London to Paris (or Paris to London), try London to Lille (or Lille to London) instead. You can then use a French domestic train between Lille & Paris.
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Tip: If you get stuck in Paris, you can always catch a train to Calais or Caen and take a ferry back to Dover or Portsmouth, see the London to Paris by train & ferry page. Or from Amsterdam or Brussels, use the Hoek-Harwich Stena Line service between Amsterdam & London.
How to buy a Eurostar passholder ticket
Option 1, buy at Raileurope.com
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You can check availability on www.raileurope.com before buying a pass as you don't need a pass number to run an enquiry.
However, you'll need each passenger's pass number, passport number and date of birth to buy a ticket.
If you bought your pass from www.raileurope.com, there's no booking fee. If you didn't, they add a €2 booking fee per person.
To make a passholder booking, click Add rail pass below the journey planner and select your pass type and class.
You should see passholder fares at the prices listed above. Trains without passholder availability are also shown, but with a regular fare.
If you have a 2nd class pass only standard class Eurostar tickets appear.
If you have a 1st class pass you can choose either class. Important: It defaults to Eurostar standard (2nd class), you must change this to Eurostar Plus (1st class) if you want to travel in 1st class. I have known people miss this and end up in 2nd class!
Raileurope will ask you to input the Advance Passenger Information (API) for all passengers after payment, before you download the ticket.
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You can print your ticket or show it on your phone. I recommend loading it into the Eurostar app where you can view & change seats and (if necessary) change departure time or date for a fee as explained below.
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Booking opens up to 11 months ahead. However, you may find Interrail passholder places only appear 6 months before departure. Just wait!
Option 2, buy at Allaboard.eu
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Allaboard.eu is a small but growing agency based in Stockholm & Berlin that can sell train tickets and passholder reservations. It has an excellent user interface, so is really easy to use.
You can check availability before buying a pass as you don't need a pass number to run an enquiry.
Simply run an enquiry at Allaboard.eu/book, using the toggle marked Travelling with a railpass Interrail/Eurail.
They charge a €2 booking fee, in total for up to 3 people, or €4 for 4 people. Note those low fees!
With a 1st class pass you can travel in either class. With a 2nd class pass you can only travel in standard class.
You can print your ticket or show it on your phone. I recommend loading it into the Eurostar app where you can view & change seats and (if necessary) change departure time or date for a fee as explained below.
Allaboard.eu don't ask you to enter Advance Passenger Information (API) when you buy the ticket, you can enter API on the Eurostar.com website or in the Eurostar app any time up to 24h before you travel. That makes booking easier!
Booking opens up to 11 months ahead. However, you may find Interrail passholder places only appear 6 months before departure. Just wait!
Option 3, buy at B-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass
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You can check availability on Belgian Railways website www.b-europe.com/EN/Booking/Pass, you don't need a pass number to run an enquiry.
When you've bought a pass and have a pass number, you can buy your Eurostar passholder ticket.
You should see passholder fares at the prices listed above. Only trains with passholder availability are shown in the search results.
With a 1st class pass you can travel in either class. With a 2nd class pass only standard class Eurostar tickets will show up.
They charge a €4 booking fee on the overall booking, however many people it's for.
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You can print your ticket or show it on your phone. I recommend loading it into the Eurostar app where you can view & change seats and (if necessary) change departure time or date for a fee as explained below.
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Booking opens up to 11 months ahead. However, you may find Interrail passholder places only appear 6 months before departure. Just wait!
Option 4, buy using the Interraill reservations service
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You can book Eurostar passholder places using the official Interrail reservation service at www.interrail.com/en/book-reservations.
However, you need an Interrail pass number just to run an enquiry, so you can't check availability before buying a pass, although if you have a pass it doesn't need to be activated.
They charge a €2 booking fee per person.
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You can also make passholder bookings in the Interrail Railplanner app on your phone - it's a useful app for offline timetable enquiries in any case, and mobile passes are displayed in this app. Download it at www.interrail.com/en/plan-your-trip/rail-planner-app.
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On the Interrail website and Railplanner app, Eurostar departure times include check-in time. So for example, if you want to book the 09:31 London-Paris Eurostar, you need to select the 08:56 'departure', this is correctly shown as 09:31 when you select it and proceed.
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You can print your ticket or show it on your phone. I recommend loading it into the Eurostar app where you can view & change seats and (if necessary) change departure time or date for a fee as explained below.
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Booking opens up to 11 months ahead. However, you may find Interrail passholder places only appear 6 months before departure. Just wait!
Option 5, buy at the station or call Eurostar telesales
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Eurostar passholder fares are available directly from the Eurostar ticket area at London St Pancras, Lille Europe, Paris Gare du Nord & Brussels Midi, or by phone from Eurostar telesales on 03432 186 186 (UK) or +44 1233 617575 (overseas) but there may be a phone booking fee. You will need your pass number.
After buying a Eurostar passholder ticket
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Load it into the Eurostar app!
Download the Eurostar app at www.eurostar.com/uk-en/travel-info/your-trip/eurostar-app (please let me know if that link changes).
You can then load your Eurostar ticket into the app using the Eurostar booking reference and your last name.
The Eurostar booking reference is a 6-character alpha-numeric number you'll find somewhere in your booking, in addition to any number applied by the retailer. For example, 4F7MWD.
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View or change seats - select a better one!
In the app, click View or change seats.
You then see your seat on a Eurostar seat map and can change it to whatever car and seat you prefer in that class.
For example, selecting a seat at the front of a 16-car 900-seat train saves vital minutes getting off the platform on arrival in London, Paris or Brussels when you've an onward connection. A family may prefer 4 seats around a table. Or seats next to one of the cafe-bars. Whatever!
See my advice here on how to choose the best Eurostar seats (just don't choose seat 61 when I'm travelling, please!).
You can find Eurostar seat maps for both their e300 & e320 trains here.
Or on a desktop, go to www.eurostar.com, click Manage your booking and load your booking using the 6-character Eurostar booking reference and your last name. Then click View or change seats.
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How to change your Eurostar time or date
You can change your Eurostar departure time or date (but not the origin or destination stations) in the app or at www.eurostar.com using the Manage your booking link.
Changing time or date is free of charge until 7 days before departure. From then until departure there's a £15/€20 change fee.
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You must still set up your pass in the normal way
If using a mobile pass, you must add your Eurostar journey to My trip and toggle it onto your pass as for any other journey. If using a hard-copy pass, you must record the Eurostar journey in your hand-written travel diary.
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See the Eurostar page for a guide to Eurostar trains, classes, check-in procedures & journey.