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Boss wants to go Christmas market in Cologne for a treat and fancy doing train from East Midlands to Cologne as never been on Eurostar. Where’s best place to sort tickets?
For any Euro rail, I'd start with the advice from the real guru:
For UK, Trainline is ubiquitous (and they do Eurostar), but charge booking fees.
I'd try the split ticket sites first e.g.
But main advice is to head to The Man in Seat 61
For Eurostar, I think you might as well buy direct from them. You can get connecting tickets for within the UK, which can be a lot cheaper than buying them separately.
If going via a combination of UK TOC and Eurostar, then best to book the ticket as one via the Eurostar website rather than a return to London and then a return to Köln/wherever.
That way if the UK train is delayed causing you to miss the connecting Eurostar ticket then you would be covered.
Not all minor UK stations are bookable on the Eurostar site, but mainline ones are.
Brussels and Brugges Christmas markets are easier to get to on Eurostar than Köln, but the Germans do it better.
I use www.loco2.com.
Cover UK and Europe.
When we did a train epic a couple of years ago, (multiple trips from both Italy back to the UK) the Belgian railway site booked all the mainland Europe legs and had a useful phone app to boot.
For Eurostar, cash in Tesco Clubcard vouchers. I've been to France a few times and to date it hasn't cost me a penny.
That way if the UK train is delayed causing you to miss the connecting Eurostar ticket then you would be covered.
Things may be changing as we get increasingly Brexity, but my experience of Eurostar is that they're incredibly froody about ticketing and don't really care which train you're on. It's not like our lot where your ticket is only valid in the first three cars on services via Carlisle whilst carrying an aardvark.
Things may be changing as we get increasingly Brexity, but my experience of Eurostar is that they’re incredibly froody about ticketing and don’t really care which train you’re on. It’s not like our lot where your ticket is only valid in the first three cars on services via Carlisle whilst carrying an aardvark.
True.
But the benefits also work the other way.
There have been a couple of occasions where my parents have been stuck in Paris overnight due to delayed/Cancelled Eurostar trains. If they had not booked connecting tickets through Eurostar then they would have been required to pay the standard walk up fare between Kings Cross and Yorkshire for several hundred pounds each when they eventually did reach KX the following day (as if they had booked UK tickets +Eurostar tickets separately then their super special off peak mega return aardvark-carrying super-saver tickets would no longer have been valid as they would have missed their original booked train)
Ah, that I wasn't aware of. Good to know, ta.
Did your parents ask? I’ve found previously when I’ve missed a booked train due to a cancellation the TOC have been very good. Not Eurostar though. Next day may also be an issue I guess. My aardvark has been good for me.