Eurostar and European train booking help

[scissorsorknife]

Any recommendations for a company who books european rail tickets - just the train tickets to Europe and around Europe, not a holiday package. Thank you

I usually book with Rail Europe-they've been fantastic with refunds etc in the past two years. Never had any issues with bookings etc so can recommend

I usually book direct, i.e. with bahn.de - this is because I want to choose exact seats on the train, and you can only do it if you go direct to the train operator. The Deutsche Bahn app is really good, and obvs all available in English (among other languages). Likewise I book direct with Thalys.

The Man at Seat 61 recommends Railbookers, direct link and link using his referral code.

thank you very helpful. i will look into these on Wednesday.

Any other suggestions still welcome

Which countries? Inoui.fr for France, obb.at for Austria and Germany if doing long distance (I find DB frustrating), nightjet for mid-Europe sleepers, sbb.ch for Switzerland, Thalys for Paris to Amsterdam via Brussels. Most of them will send you a pdf that you print at home

Do you want a company who will plan and book the route for you or you already know what route you want to take and rough times? I think that makes a difference as to whether to go direct or use one the small specialist rail providers (of which there are still a few left!)

After discovering at the eleventh hour that DD's Interrail ticket had the wrong dates on I had a couple of nervous hours booking point to point tickets for her through The Trainline. I didn't find any other sites that easy or user friendly at the time as it was very last minute and a bit of a panic.

I also found that it was only about £30 more than the Interrail ticket. Luckily Interrail refunded the wrong ticket.

Thank you. We want to take eurostar from ebbsfleet and stop in paris and then continue on. Previously booking via a specialist uk company we were given cheaper prices if we stopped for under 24 hours in paris. We know dates/times/routes we ideally want to travel but would like the stopover. Ideally longer than 24 hours but 23 hours would do if it reduces the price significantly. Perhaps booking separately that doesnt matter but we dont want one booking without the other.

www.seat61.com gives all the info about the best places to book. Thetrainline.com offers same pricing as the local sites but doesn't always show all the possible options. For France I normally use the SNCF website. Where are you planning to travel on to?

PS trains aren't running from Ebbsfleet or Ashford in 2022 - you'd need to leave from St Pancras.

I had no idea trains werent running from Ebbsfleet!! That may change all plans as we usually drive and park there. Getting 4 kids down to London and on the tube with all ski stuff does not make getting the train sound like an easy option.

MissAmbrosia - Travelling onto a ski resort - exact one TBC

@MissAmbrosia

PS trains aren't running from Ebbsfleet or Ashford in 2022 - you'd need to leave from St Pancras.

Is this because of Covid or some other restructuring?

website says due to covid!! Obviously they are not all back to normal on Thursday whatever the government say and no quick plans to change as they say until at least the end of 2022

That's good to know. Thank you scissorsorknife. I am quite surprised by that tbh, but I guess they have taken a huge financial hit recently. And with Brexit. And they never sounded that financially secure before that.

Sorry for thread hi-jack op. Hope you have a good holiday with stress-free travel!

Eurostar are in massive financial trouble and they're having to pay extra staff to do all the border document checks.

For trains in France, you can either take the inoui tgv which is easy to book through sncf-connect or ouigo tgv (also listed on sncf-connect) . Ouigo is like ryanair for trains. It's really cheap and still high speed, but you have to pay extra for bags and it sometimes goes to odd out of town stations instead of the main one. They do have ski trains though and it's massively massively cheaper than the normal tgv, so it's worth checking their destinations.

You can still drive to ebbs fleet and get a South Eastern train to st Pancras then change onto the eurostar there. Obviously it's a bit of a faff but possibly easier than a tube, especially if you choose a quiet time of day at the station

If you live near Ebbsfleet you can get the high speed train into St Pancras, no need to get the tube through London.

However, if you don't get the direct ski train to the Alps (which is v expensive) you will probably have to change in Paris. This is doable but a bit of a nightmare with 4 kids and the ski stuff (I speak from experience). Allow lots of time.