Question re booking Eurostar from Paris to London, and on to Southampton

Next year, we'll be taking the Eurostar from Paris to London and heading immediately over to Waterloo station to get a train to Southampton. Thanks to this excellent forum, I have learned that we can book all of that directly on the Eurostar web site, and I see how to do that.

My question involves getting the actual tickets once we have booked (we are in the U.S.). The Eurostar web site says that you can print the tickets at home, unless:

If you’ve booked onward travel with another train operator the Print at home option won’t be available

If you’ve also booked UK rail travel with us you’ll need to collect your UK rail travel tickets from the station on departure.

It seems like one if not both of those exceptions would be applicable here. If that's the case, when it says "you'll need to collect your UK rail travel tickets from the station on departure," does it mean in Paris or at Waterloo station?

A final question: if we will be arriving at St. Pancras on a Monday morning, say around 9:30am, about how long should it take us to get to Waterloo station by cab?

Thanks as always for all the help!

I would assume they meant Waterloo. That said, I'm not sure you're gaining any advantage from booking ahead of time, if you have to collect your tickets anyways. There doesn't seem to be much of a discount for booking ahead of time for Waterloo-Southampton trains, so might be just better buying a ticket for the next train when you get there.

I would assume they meant Waterloo. That said, I'm not sure you're gaining any advantage from booking ahead of time, if you have to collect your tickets anyways. There doesn't seem to be much of a discount for booking ahead of time for Waterloo-Southampton trains, so might be just better buying a ticket for the next train when you get there.

Thanks for your quick reply. Unless I'm reading things incorrectly (and I may be on the wrong sites for UK rail), there does seem to be a good discount for booking it all together in advance on the Eurostar site. We qualify on Eurostar for "senior" rates, so if I do a dummy booking now from Paris to Southampton as far out as I can go (March), it shows £33 pp. I'm seeing rates for just London to Southampton for the same time period that are about that much alone (which seems rather steep, or dear).

Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places for booking UK rail and checking prices. Do you have a good link to the site for booking UK rail tickets in advance?

Thanks!

Thanks for your quick reply. Unless I'm reading things incorrectly (and I may be on the wrong sites for UK rail), there does seem to be a good discount for booking it all together in advance on the Eurostar site. We qualify on Eurostar for "senior" rates, so if I do a dummy booking now from Paris to Southampton as far out as I can go (March), it shows £33 pp. I'm seeing rates for just London to Southampton for the same time period that are about that much alone (which seems rather steep, or dear).

 

Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places for booking UK rail and checking prices. Do you have a good link to the site for booking UK rail tickets in advance?

 

Thanks!

Well, if you're getting that price for Paris all the way to Southampton, then you're right and I'm wrong - that's a very good price indeed.

As for timing, most connections are either 56 or 65 minutes - my cautious self would take the 65 minute one, but either should be doable. A taxi would probably be 15-20 minutes.

Investigating Eurostar from Paris to Southampton, I was getting senior prices higher than 33GBP for just the Gare du Nord- St. Pancras journey!

Long story short, we decided to fly direct from ORY-SOU on Air France aka Flybe at a cost of $108 pp since it involved a shorter travel time and eliminated going from St. Pancras to Waterloo. We get to stay longer in Paris as well. Flying will be easier on our traveling companions who won't have to schlep so much in that we'll book a private transfer from our Paris hotel to ORY.

Will have to save the Chunnel for another time....

Small correction to my post above: in March (the farthest out you can book now through to Southampton), the senior rate for the Eurostar from Paris to London is £33, booking through to Southampton is £41. That strikes me as a really good deal. The problem is that Eurostar bookings (Paris to London) open up 6 months in advance, but the intra-UK portion can't be booked until about 12 weeks out, so I'd have to wait till only 12 weeks out to book it all at once.

Yes, the Eurostar deals connecting UK rail travel are amazing. I have only done it from this end though.

From this end, we have to book this bit once we can give a Eurostar booking reference ie once you have booked the Eurostar journey.

There is usually no problem at all picking the ticket up from a station. Best check with the Eurostar Domestic Travel department for your specific situation to be clear.

When I have done 'collect at station' it has always meant that I have had to go to a machine, put my credit card in, enter the booking number, then the tickets printed out. (CC is not charged, just used to validate you are the correct person, and it had to be the one that was used to book the tickets)

I am not 100% sure if that is the only way or if you can go to a counter to get them.

Turtles06, I have always found Eurostar very helpful answering queries by phone and by email and I would suggest you did this to put your mind at rest.

Like SwissDave, I have also always collected my ticket from a machine.

You can phone Eurostar and ask to be put through to 'Domestic Travel'. I believe they have a special number for customers phoning from abroad..... Or if you email, mark for the attention of 'Domestic Travel'.

Booking from this end, we book Eurostar first and as early as possible to get the best rates and then we do the 'add on' afterwards once we have the Eurostar reference and once the tickets are available. Those are very special exclusive 'Eurostar linking' rates and not obtainable from any other source than Eurostar as far as I know. £7 sounds about right for London-Southampton with your Senior Card and is especially amazing as it includes the Underground connection too.

But I really do think you need to get in touch with Eurostar specifically to confirm/clarify as we can only speak about booking from this end and would hate to mis-lead you. They are very very helpful.

Turtles

We just booked our Eurostar return london to Paris and spoke to the guy who does the UK add ons (we're departing Edinburgh to get to London ST Pancras). Book your Eurostar ticket now to get the best london to Paris (or Paris to London) rate then when the UK rail tickets open you can ring the euro star guy and he will combine the tickets so if one train is running late you are guaranteed to catch the next train and you get the best deals.

If you need it, email me and I'll give you his direct number or just ring Eurostar and ask for the UK rail connection guy. They are really hekpful on the phone. Luckily I have excellent international call rates :)

Great paddingtonbear - you have found Eurostar's treasure! That man is truly amazing.

One more point, turtles : We UK people have to be in possession of a Senior Rail Card to qualify for the senior rate fare on the Add-on tickets. Best to check if that applies to you too.

Thank you all for the incredibly helpful information above.

We are in the U.S., so I won't be ringing anyone just yet, too dear. :)

But I have sent off an email to Eurostar to ask about booking Paris/London and then doing the "add on" to Southampton once that booking opens up. If it can't be done on line, only by phone, I think anything we'd save on the fare would be swallowed up by the international phone call! :eek:

I've also asked about the Senior Rail Card issue, thanks for flagging that for me.

One additional question for the experts: what is the best web site for checking (and booking) internal UK rail travel (in this case London to Southampton). I'm usually good at finding what I need on the internet, but there seem to be so many sites claiming to sell UK rail tickets. Is there one official site?

Thanks!

Is there one official site?

Yes: http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/

If you are buying the special rate Eurostar add on tickets, you can only buy them from the above mentioned Eurostar Domestic Travel department.

I think some one better qualified than me will be along soon about the best sites to use for booking normal UK rail tickets and checking services and times, although you will find the Domestic Travel office an excellent source of information/recommendations on the best connections to take.

Thanks Twickenham, just what I was looking for! :)

Very good information in this thread. Can I just add that this train travel website is a gem too - http://www.seat61.com

Carol

Thanks Twickenham, just what I was looking for! :)

Turtles, I booked our Eurostar tickets for mid June 2015 yesterday. Booking is open until June 21 now.

You can't book the add-on on line. It has to be by phone to the eurostar guy.

Can you book your Eurostar tickets now and get skype going to call the eurostar guy when the UK domestic tickets go on sale about 12 weeks before your have to travel?

Very good information in this thread. Can I just add that this train travel website is a gem too - http://www.seat61.com

 

Carol

Thanks so much, I do know about that site; it's invaluable. :)

Turtles, I booked our Eurostar tickets for mid June 2015 yesterday. Booking is open until June 21 now.

 

You can't book the add-on on line. It has to be by phone to the eurostar guy.

Can you book your Eurostar tickets now and get skype going to call the eurostar guy when the UK domestic tickets go on sale about 12 weeks before your have to travel?

Thanks very much. (We don't travel until October, so I have a bit of a wait.) It does appear that if you wait till 90 days from your date of travel, you can book the entire journey on line from Paris through to Southampton on the Eurostar web site (no need to call anyone). For example, if you do a dummy booking right now for March 16, 2015 (a random date), you can book Paris/Southampton on the Eurostar site, no phone calls needed. I'm not wrong here, am I?

I think my best option here is to monitor things once the actual Eurostar bookings for Paris/London open up for the date we want to travel, and watch prices and availability (we'll be traveling on a Monday in late October), with the goal of booking the whole trip through to Southampton when that opens up 90 or so days out. I would certainly appreciate any thoughts about whether that makes sense.

One question about the "add on" if I do decide to make that international phone call: is the price to "add on" the trip from London to Southampton going to be that incredibly cheap fare (about 7 or 8£) that Eurostar charges when you book all the way from Paris to Southampton in one booking on their web site?

Thanks for all the help!

My trip was Edinburgh to London one way then London to Paris return and the first leg is on a Saturday in June so it's a bit different from yours.

Four days after my return date opened the 34 GBP seats have gone for the early morning trains. That is 26 weeks out. They went that quickly. So I'm not sure if waiting till 90 days out will work.

Maybe you would be better off working out how to get cheap international calls. Skype USA to UK is 2 cents a minute.

My trip was Edinburgh to London one way then London to Paris return and the first leg is on a Saturday in June so it's a bit different from yours.

 

Four days after my return date opened the 34 GBP seats have gone for the early morning trains. That is 26 weeks out. They went that quickly. So I'm not sure if waiting till 90 days out will work.

 

Maybe you would be better off working out how to get cheap international calls. Skype USA to UK is 2 cents a minute.

Thank you. I've also exchanged some emails with Eurostar customer service today (boy are they great in quickly responding) and have concluded that waiting till 90 days out is probably not the best way to go.

My only familiarity with Skype is making Skype to Skype video calls. Guess I need to find out how it works when the number you are calling is not on Skype, just a regular audio phone....

My regular landline has 20c/min calls to UK and USA so I don't need to use Skype for regular calls but I think you have to link a credit card or similar to access landlines not on Skype as there is a small charge.

I'm sure it will be worth it to work out the details.

Next year, we'll be taking the Eurostar from Paris to London and heading immediately over to Waterloo station to get a train to Southampton. Thanks to this excellent forum, I have learned that we can book all of that directly on the Eurostar web site, and I see how to do that.

 

My question involves getting the actual tickets once we have booked (we are in the U.S.). The Eurostar web site says that you can print the tickets at home, unless:

 

 

 

It seems like one if not both of those exceptions would be applicable here. If that's the case, when it says "you'll need to collect your UK rail travel tickets from the station on departure," does it mean in Paris or at Waterloo station?

 

A final question: if we will be arriving at St. Pancras on a Monday morning, say around 9:30am, about how long should it take us to get to Waterloo station by cab?

 

Thanks as always for all the help!

I looked into doing something similiar on our last cruise in September but decided on taking the coach from Victoria Station instead. We thought it was easier and less complicated to catch the tube from St Pancras to Victoria Station than trying to get to Waterloo and the train. The coach from Victoria Station was only $5.5bps ($7us) :) and was booked ahead on their website. I also booked the Eurostar on the US website and printed the tickets at home. We just had to scan the tickets at the turnstiles at St Pancras and Gare du Nord.

http://www.eurostar.com/us-en

http://www.nationalexpress.com/home.aspx

We will be traveling from Paris to London this summer on Wednesday, June 24th.

From info I gathered on these boards, it looked like going on the SNCF.com site and choosing France as where you were buying the tickets would give us the cheaper rates than saying 'US'.

So I just went on the SNCF.com site, changed to English, choose over 60 yrs and choose 'France' where I was buying the tickets. The price is 82 euros.

then I went on this website, as suggested above... http://www.eurostar.com/us-en

the ticket for the same train was 56.00 US dollars... big difference. How come?

Should I book now? Or is it too early? Will the price go down or up as it gets closer to June.

Again, thanks for all your valuable help.

We will be traveling from Paris to London this summer on Wednesday, June 24th.

 

From info I gathered on these boards, it looked like going on the SNCF.com site and choosing France as where you were buying the tickets would give us the cheaper rates than saying 'US'.

 

So I just went on the SNCF.com site, changed to English, choose over 60 yrs and choose 'France' where I was buying the tickets. The price is 82 euros.

 

then I went on this website, as suggested above... http://www.eurostar.com/us-en

the ticket for the same train was 56.00 US dollars... big difference. How come?

 

Should I book now? Or is it too early? Will the price go down or up as it gets closer to June.

 

Again, thanks for all your valuable help.

Hmmm... I just did the dummy booking for June 24 as though I were in France and came up with 41 euros for one senior ticket, not 82 euros. (Be sure to zero out the number of adults, and just click "1" for the senior box.) I did get the same $56 you got when I selected U.S. as place of purchase.

In terms of when to buy, everything I have read here and elsewhere about the Eurostar advises to buy as early as you can, that prices go up as you get closer to departure date. (I am not speaking from personal experience, just a great deal of research! :) )

Not sure what web site you are using, but this is Eurostar:

http://www.eurostar.com/fr-fr

Well i booked it !!! 41 euros per person... Yippee....

thanks for all your help. One thing to check off my 'to do list'