Eurostar Paris to London

[Littlebeachlover]

We will be making this leg of the trip July 1st, should I purchase the Eurostar tickets online before leaving home in June? If so, how far in advance? Is there a better time of the day to travel to avoid crowds? Thanks in advance for any help!

[MATHA531]

Things change but in the past, here's what I found

 

You will do better, much better, buying the tickets online usually almost all the time. It's like buying airline tickets in advance. The computers monitor which trains are doing well and adjust the mixture of fares. Beaqr in mind senior citizsen rates start at 60 there. Go to the eurostar web site (eurostar.com) and when it asks where you live, say the UK (it used to put a cookie in your computer, don't know if it still does and assuming you are from the USA it would re-direct you to Rail Europe and I had to get that cookie out of my system).....you can check out the fares. Now, s with the airlines, one way fares are (or were) outrageously expensive but you can check it out. It might pay to buy a same day return and just eat the return, you might do much much better. You can now print the tickets right on line...the cheapest just like airlines are non refundable non changeable so the sooner you hae firm plans, usually the better off you are. You cxan pay with a credit card and for pete's sake when it asks what currency you want to pay in, tell them UK£ not US$ or Euro....now if it's changed, perhaps somebody can point it out but over the years, and I do the trip once a year, that was the best way for me (I have been buying senior tickets which have reasonable one way fares and although I am eligible, nobody ever checks as if you print the tickets at home, you check in bvy putting the ticket on a reader. Now I am not suggesting you cheat but it is something you can bear in mind especially on this idea of buying a same day return as opposed to an overpriced one way without a senior discount)......you might also try Rail Europe but do so directly not re-directed by a cookie from the Eurostar web site!

 

I think tickets go on sale 90 days in advbance as I remember but again that might have changed but it doesn't hurt to take a look.

[Bob++]

Yes - you can only book three months in advance. You should make the booking as soon as you can.

 

After a quick look it seems that the single fare is roughly the same as a return so no savings that way. There is a marked difference depending on the time of day though, so try to pick a cheaper time and work around that if you can. Be aware that for the cheapest prices you MUST catch the train you book. Flexible bookings are much more expensive.

 

As Matha says you should register (as a UK citizen) now because they may well send you special offers which might reduce the cost.

 

What are you going to do when you arrive in London? If you have a flight to catch make sure you allow plenty of time to get to the airport as Sunday is the prefered day for engineering works. Eurostar is pretty good but you never know.

[MATHA531]

Actually I just checked and they are accepting bookings today through 20 June 2012.

[hubofhockey]

We will be making this leg of the trip July 1st, should I purchase the Eurostar tickets online before leaving home in June? If so, how far in advance? Is there a better time of the day to travel to avoid crowds? Thanks in advance for any help!

 

I just bought tickets yesterday for Paris to London for Saturday, July 7 (cruise leaves on the 8th. I saw a good price for the 2:13 pm train at $67 per person. They charged a $7 service charge. The prices I had seen before for this trip were around $112. The 3:13 pm train was twice the price.

[hubofhockey]

Actually I just checked and they are accepting bookings today through 20 June 2012.

 

I was able to book for July yesterday through raileurope.com.

 

It is strange that raileurope.com would be selling further out than eurostar.com. But I even got seat assignments. It did say only two tickets remaining at that price and now the price is showing at $129 per ticket as opposed to the $67 I paid yesterday.

 

July 1 is only showing the $67 fair for 8:13 am and 4:43 pm trains. 9:13 is $110 and the rest of the prices are either $129 or $179.

 

I wouldn't wait to book from eurostar.com. By the time that site posts tickets, the better fares could already be gone. Raileurope.com works just fine.

[hubofhockey]

I want to clarify my booking of the Paris to London on the Eurostar (booked on Raileurope.com). I was not given the option of choosing my seats. But they did give us two seats together in Coach 3. The price also came up in $USD. I did not have the option of paying in another currency and I believe raileurope.com detected my location from my ip address.

 

Maybe the advice given in earlier posts about waiting for your dates to become available on eurostar.com makes sense. Of course, you would be risking that the prices listed on raileurope.com would be available from either site when you book.

[MATHA531]

Rail Europe is a consolidator for many of the European railroads for Americans and Canadians. You can alwaysa go to their web site directly. Most of the time, but not all the time as I indicated, prices are cheaper directly on the various rail web site, in this case, eurostar.com, than on rail Europe but not always. I did say if you live in the USA or Canada, it's worth looking at Rail Europe after getting an idea of the prices of the eurostar web site thus you have a choice in that way. Several years ago, I don't know if it's still so, on the first screen on Eurostar.com, you were asked your country of residence and if you said USA, you were directed to Rail Europe (perhaps that was their agreement with Rail Europe) and what's worse, they put a cookie into your browser and every time yo uwent to eurostar.com thereafter, the cookie directed the browser to Rail Europe. I had to remove that cookie. Whether that is still true or not, I don't know. There seem to be a greater variety of fares available on eurostar.com than Rail Europe and since you can print your ticket directly, no delivery charge (although they have a credit card surcharge). Just for comparison sakes, I looked yesterday and there are trains on 20 June, the date I will probably need although at this point it's not set in stone, for £44 which is pretty close to the price referred to here although that is for a senior discount. Also for many years just like with the airlines, you did better if you bought a return (round trip) ticket than a one way although I think what has happened that so many people were doing that so the last trains of the night were listed as full and hardly anybody was on the train so they've lowered advanced purchase non refundable one way fares to a more reasonable level.

 

Finally on the eurostar web site, on checking out you are given the choice of currency to use for the purchase. The rates they use are horrible. On Rail Euope, since it is meant for US and Canadians, there is no choice of currency. Everything is denominated in US (or Canadian I believe currency although the US$ and CA$ are trading almost at par right now).

 

As with everything else, if you see a price you like, take it and do't worry about what happens later.

[Littlebeachlover]

Thanks everyone for the information. I plan to book those tickets this weekend!

[hubofhockey]

Thanks everyone for the information. I plan to book those tickets this weekend!

 

Smart move. Out of curiosity, I gave both sites a look for the weekend day in June and prices were similar on both sites for every train, every hour. Raileurope.com was about $5 to $10 cheaper for each seat. There is no benefit to waiting other than holding on to your money for another couple of weeks. The risk is that the discounted fares will be taken up by people booking on raileurope.com before they are even open for booking on eurostar.com.